What If You Don't
by irismay42
Summary: When their Dad doesn't return from a hunt, twelve year old Dean and eight year old Sam have to deal with an unexpected relative and a sinister plot that could leave one of them dead and the other lost forever...
1. Prologue

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing and no-one.

**Language / Violence:** Mild and infrequent. Unless you include this website crashing just as I was about to upload a new story. In which case much violence, wailing and gnashing of teeth will ensue.

**A/N: **As a rule, when it comes to sequels I agree wholeheartedly with Dean's views on shorts. I just don't 'do' them. That said, this makes vague references to my first fan fic Lunch Money, but you by no means have to have read that one to follow this one. Although extra hits and reviews are, of course, always welcome.

Generally, I've usually finished or nearly finished a story before I start posting it on here, but I thought I'd try writing one while I was getting some feedback from people reading it. That's my very lame way of saying this might not get updated as frequently as my other stories did.

When I wrote Lunch Money, I really didn't think anyone would be interested in a full-length Kiddie Winchester Fic, which is why that one had the flashbacks intercut with scenes with the Grown-Up Winchesters. However, judging by the number of Kiddie Winchester Fics I've read on here lately, I think I was wrong. So I thought I'd give it a go...

Again, apologies for the British spelling but, in the words of the Goo Goo Dolls, I_ Can't Let it Go... _(Shameless plug for new album _Let Love In_: in all good stores right now for your listening pleasure...!)

Better get on with the story then. This is the very very short Prologue. More to follow. Reviews always welcome. My biggest ambition in life is to top 100... But as 56 is my highest so far, not much chance of that...

**What If You Don't**

_**Prologue**_

Dean Winchester became a man when he was eight years old.

Or that's what his Dad had told him.

And Dean had no reason to doubt his Dad. Dad was big and strong and – what was that word? – 'in-vinc-ible' – which meant bulletproof, as far as Dean knew. And at eight, he knew some big words. Dad was invincible. Like Superman. And, like Superman, he never lied.

"Dean, come here," Dad had said, beckoning his oldest son into the motel room's tiny kitchenette, away from where his kid brother Sammy was splayed across the bedroom floor drawing big purple robots with broken Crayola stumps on a thick wad of paper towels that Dean had 'borrowed' from the men's room of the last gas station they'd passed through.

Dean had followed Dad into the horribly yellow kitchenette, adulation and apprehension fighting for control of his freckled face as he cautiously looked up at his father.

Dad had turned to face him then, big hands heavy on his shoulders, crouching down so they were at eye level.

_Uh-oh_, Dean had thought. _Either I'm in _big_ trouble, or this is gonna be another 'I know I've asked a lot of you, kiddo, but…' conversation._ Straightening his shoulders, Dean had prepared for the worst, tensed and ready, obedient and attentive. Every bit the Good Little Soldier stance he'd practiced so hard in front of the mirror.

A strangely sad smile had tugged at the corners of Dad's mouth, and he had patted Dean's shoulder affectionately. "Okay, Dean," he'd said, all business again, the smile so fleeting that Dean wondered whether he'd imagined it. "This is really important and I need you to listen carefully."

Dean had nodded like he knew he was supposed to. "Yes, sir."

"Dean," Dad had said, eyes locking firmly with his oldest son's. "Something's come up. I have to be somewhere tonight. Or people will get hurt." He had looked even deeper into Dean's liquid eyes, seeing the fear there that the kid was so desperately trying to hide.

"Like Mom?"

That was always Dean's question, and it always made Dad's face go funny.

Dad had nodded, trying not to think about how much Dean looked like his Mom just then.

"People could die?"

Dean, unlike most kids his age, had a very real understanding of the concept of 'Death'. Despite what he told Sammy in those night-time moments when his kid brother just refused to sleep, Dean seriously doubted Mommy was an Angel in Heaven.

Dead was dead.

Like Vince Reardon's dog that they'd buried in his back garden. Or the bird with the broken wing that Dad had had to put out of its misery.

_Dead_ was _not here_. _Dead_ was _gone_.

Like Mom.

Dad had sighed then, a long sad sigh that hurt Dean's chest. "Yes Dean," he'd said quietly, never one to talk down to his son or sugar coat the horrors this world had in store for him. "People could die."

Dean had nodded. "Is it a ghost?" he'd asked, knowing that Dad hated that word. He said it made something unnatural sound like something warm and fuzzy, like a baby panda or a litter of chocolate Labs, and he blamed that damn movie. Sammy loved that movie. Always cried when the Marshmallow Man got splattered all over.

And Dean knew better than to even get Dad started on Casper.

"Evil spirit," Dad had corrected, as Dean knew he would. "Yes. And it could kill a lot of people tonight." He had squeezed Dean's shoulder again, his voice softening slightly. "I didn't think I'd get a handle on it this fast," he'd added, in a voice that almost said 'I'm sorry'. "We'd planned for Pastor Jim to come up here in a few days to look after you guys while I…" he trailed off, still not entirely comfortable with sharing all the grizzly details of the Hunt with his son. Especially when he knew Dean would _remember_ all the grizzly details. "But I can't wait that long. I have to get it now. I have to get it tonight."

Dean had nodded, not really understanding. "Or people could die."

"People could die," Dad had echoed, gently stroking Dean's hair.

Another sad smile flickered across Dad's weathered face then, and he suddenly went all serious and hard-faced, the way Sammy hated. He'd straightened his back, and returned his hands to his son's shoulders, the weight nearly pushing the boy to his knees. "You remember we talked about this?" he'd said carefully. "That I might have to leave you alone to take care of Sammy one day?"

Dean had swallowed hard, head bobbing slightly as the words, 'Yes, sir', refused to leave his throat.

Dad had squeezed his shoulder again. "Today's the day, kiddo," he'd said, trying to smile reassuringly. "I gotta get this thing tonight. So." He took a deep breath. "I need you to take care of Sammy while I go do this."

Dean always took care of Sammy. Dad didn't have to remind him to do that. And it wasn't like the boys had never been left alone before. Just never for a whole night…

Dean glanced behind him at the little boy stretched out on the rug between the two beds and tried to ignore the sudden trembling in his knees and hammering in his chest.

"You think you can do that?"

Dean turned back to face his Dad. Shoulders back, back curtain-rod straight, eyes facing straight forward. "Yes, sir," he'd said, only the slightest tremor in his voice and a brief flick of his eyes to his father's giving him away.

Dad nodded, ruffling his little boy's hair. "Good boy," he'd said, standing. He'd picked up his dark blue duffel bag, hauling the tools of his trade up onto his shoulder. "It's only for tonight. I'll be back first thing in the morning, probably before you guys are even awake."

Somehow, Dean didn't think he'd be sleeping much tonight.

"And you know how to call Pastor Jim if you need any help, right?"

"Yes, sir."

"And if anything tries to get in…?"

"Shoot first, ask questions later."

"And what's your most important mission?"

"Take care of Sammy."

Dad had smiled down at him then, and a warmth had radiated through him, like it always did when he made Dad happy. "Good boy. Now don't open this door for anyone, you hear me? Not unless you hear the signal."

Dean knew the signal.

"There's cereal in the cupboard and milk in the fridge," Dad had added, as if he was talking to any little boy being left with the babysitter.

Dean eyed the empty pizza box still lurking on the rickety formica table.

And then Dad's hand was firm on his shoulder again, the other catching his son beneath the chin and turning his eyes up to face him. "You're the man of the house tonight, kiddo," he'd said with a smile, finally letting the boy go and heading for the door.

"Dad?"

Dad had stopped, hand hovering over the door latch, as he turned back to face his oldest son.

Faced with a night at home with the parents away, most kids Dean's age would have dived straight for the TV remote or the telephone or the video game console.

But Dean merely looked down at his tattered sneakers and mumbled, "What if you don't come back?"


	2. Chapter 1

**A/N: **Apologies for the delay - this was supposed to be up with the Prologue, but the website kept crashing on me yesterday so I gave up!

Again, nothing is mine. If I owned Dean and Sam I would be very happy. If I owned Jensen and Jared I would be even happier... And probably Wanted for kidnapping...

**_Chapter One_**

Dean stood on tiptoe and looked out of the kitchen window for the hundredth time that morning, twelve-year-old hands splayed across the rusty drainer as he strained for a glimpse of that familiar figure walking through the broken gate and up the overgrown path towards the shabby little apartment that, for this month at least, the Winchesters called 'home'.

The window was dingy, smeared with the grease from a thousand hurriedly-cooked meals and the nicotine from a thousand hurriedly-smoked cigarettes. But Dean could see out okay. If he stood on tiptoe.

He sighed.

Dad hadn't come home.

Since he was eight years old, this had been Dean's single, most paralysingly terrifying recurring nightmare. From that very first time, aged eight, when he had turned wide, frightened eyes up to his Dad as he left him to take care of Sammy while he took off to hunt God-knows-what deadly creature of the night, when he'd asked him that question and waited patiently for an answer that never came, this had been Dean's single, biggest fear:

"What if you don't come back?"

Dad hadn't come home.

It had been three days now, and Dad hadn't come home.

"It's just for tonight, sport," Dad had said, swinging the canvas holdall up onto his shoulder. He called Dean 'sport' these days, the nickname 'kiddo' having been passed on to Sammy like one of Dean's hand-me-down t-shirts. "I'll be back tomorrow. Or the next day at the latest."

But now it was the day after the next day, and Dad still hadn't come home.

Dean fought the wave of nausea threatening to rise up from his stomach and into his throat, fingers clinging to the cool rusty metal of the drainer as phrases like 'Child Services' and 'foster care' battled 'werewolf' and 'skinwalker' in a ruthless attempt to find the words that would scare the kid the most.

When Dean was ten, he and Sammy had been taken into care.

That had only been for the one night, too, as Child Services attempted to ascertain just exactly how he'd ended up in the Emergency Room with a four inch gash to his forehead and a dislocated shoulder.

Somehow, Dad had come up with an explanation that never once included the word 'poltergeist', while simultaneously convincing those do-gooding social workers that he _didn't_ beat the crap out of his kids.

That had been another in the ever-increasing list of Most Terrifying Nights of My Life that Dean could no longer count on his fingers. Sammy had cried until he had no breath left to cry with and no tears left to shed, and had clung on to Dean until his arms hurt and his big brother had six-year-old finger-sized bruises all around his middle.

But Dean hadn't cried. Not once. Dean had been brave and stoic, every bit the reliable, dependable rock of a big brother his Dad kept telling him he was supposed to be.

"They'll let us go home tomorrow, Sammy," he'd reassured the little boy, who buried his face against Dean's chest when the nice foster lady had tried to tempt him with fried chicken.

The other kids in the house had looked at them like they were mental and run off with all the food.

"You'll never see your Dad again," one particularly nasty little monster called Abigail had informed them, twisting a blonde pigtail around her finger as she devoured a chicken leg. "And they'll separate you. Send you off to different foster homes. And you'll never see each other again either."

If Sammy hadn't started sobbing even harder right then, Dean would have shoved the remnants of the chicken leg down sweet little Abigail's throat and chopped off her pigtails with the biggest knife he could lay his hands on.

As it was, he'd settled for glaring at her menacingly, which had only succeeded in encouraging her to sit and stare at him for the next hour, before declaring, "You've got girl's eyes," and proceeding to ask him if he wanted to kiss her.

It was at this point that Dean discovered there were advantages to having a dislocated shoulder and a terrified kid brother who wouldn't let go of your shirt. It would have been very, very bad, as Dad had pointed out afterwards, had Dean actually knocked an eleven-year-old girl's teeth out while his father was struggling to defend himself against accusations of domestic violence.

Didn't stop Dean breaking Abel O'Shaughnessy's arm the next day at recess though.

"Once they put you in a Home," the older boy had said, getting in Dean's face with his implied capital letters and buck teeth, "you're in The System." He seemed very pleased with his use of that term. 'The System'. Like he knew what it actually meant, having heard it on some documentary his sister had made him watch as 'a warning'. "They'll split you up," he'd added, glancing down at Sammy, who had somehow found Dean amidst the throng of excited recess-bound kids within thirty seconds of the bell ringing, like some demented six-year-old homing pigeon. "You and that geeky little brother of yours."

Dean felt Sam's fingers slip into those of his good hand, while the fingers of the kid's other hand found familiar purchase on his big brother's shirt.

While on any other day macho ten-year-old Dean Winchester would have died of embarrassment at his kid brother grabbing hold of him like that in front of everyone, right now Big Brother Dean Winchester was far too busy bristling at O'Shaughnessy's ill-considered words to care a whole hell of a lot.

Of course, it didn't help that these same words had also issued forth from the forked tongue of the hideous Abigail the night before.

Unfortunately, O'Shaughnessy didn't know Dean well enough yet to recognise when to shut the hell up, adding, "Now they know your freaky Dad beats on you and everything," as if it was some juicy piece of schoolyard tittle-tattle that just had to be disseminated.

Dean didn't actually remember shoving Sam behind him, grabbing O'Shaughnessy's wrist and spinning the bigger boy into a half-nelson that ended with the sickening crack of breaking bone.

How the hell had he found out about the foster home?

That was all Dean could think as he calmly took Sam's hand and lead him away from the sobbing, shaking heap that was Abel O'Shaughnessy.

He'd been expelled, of course.

A fact that Mrs. Pritchard, the Principal of their next school, had been only too eager to point out.

Mole Lady.

Dean shuddered. He still had nightmares about the growth on that evil little woman's upper lip.

"Dean, when's Daddy coming home?"

Sam's words jerked Dean back to the present, the older boy tearing his gaze from the greasy window long enough to regard his kid brother wordlessly.

Sam was skinny and awkward and stuck out at funny angles, with unruly hair that always seemed to need cutting, dark brown like Dad's, and those dark chameleonic eyes that changed colour with his mood, hazel green like Dean's when he was happy, but dark and thunderous when he was mad. Just like Dad's.

Sometimes Dean hated it that Sam reminded him of Dad so damned much.

For a second, Dean considered sharing the terror gnawing at his insides with his brother. "A problem shared is a problem halved," he remembered Mom telling him that time he'd hidden in the closet after making baby Sammy cry.

"Tell me what's wrong, love," Mom had said, folding him into her arms and a hug that smelt like cinnamon.

"I took Mushy and made Sammy cry," he had admitted, through hacking sobs and Mom's thick blonde curls. Mushy was Sammy's favourite toy, a beat up sausage dog with no eyes that had once been Dean's, but now could usually be found wedged between Sammy's hardening gums.

Mom had cooed and stroked his hair and told him Sammy would forgive him being mean to him just this once. But he shouldn't be mean to him again. Not if he wanted to be a good big brother.

And Dean really _did_ want to be a good big brother.

Which was why he couldn't bring himself to say those awful words "Dad didn't come home" to Sammy now. Dean couldn't burden him with that kind of worry. Sammy was only eight years old, for Christ's sake.

He was just a kid.

And Dean was supposed to be the man of the house when Dad was gone.

"I don't know, Sammy," Dean had answered his brother truthfully. He would never lie to Sam, but times like these sometimes demanded a slightly skewed version of the truth. "Soon, I guess."

The trouble with skewing the truth, however, as Dean discovered the second his eyes met Sam's, was that oftentimes the person whose truth was being skewed was very much aware of that fact.

This was Sam, after all.

Sam, who picked up on Dean's every expression, every twitch, every movement, every word he _didn't_ say just as much as those he did. Sam, who knew Dean better than anyone else in the whole world and who was a hell of a lot smarter than any eight-year-old had any right to be.

Sam, who just instinctively knew when something was _off_.

"He should have come home yesterday, right?"

A problem shared is a problem halved…

Dean sighed. Sam always had been able to read him like an open book; an open book in large print with a title lit up in bright orange neon on the front cover that said, 'Hey Sam! There's something I'm not telling you!'

"Yeah," Dean admitted, eyes slightly downcast as he tried to keep that telltale tremor of fear out of his voice. "He should have been home yesterday."

To his credit, Sam didn't crumple even the slightest bit at Dean's honesty. Not like he might have done a couple of years ago. Sam had done a lot of growing up in the last couple of years – it was kind of a family requirement. Gone were the days when the fear of being tossed into a foster home without his big brother had had him screaming in terror in the dead of night, arms locked so tightly around Dean's neck that the older boy could barely breathe.

No, Sam just nodded, silently following Dean's gaze out the smeary window onto the overcast street beyond.

Sometimes, Dean found himself wishing for the return of that terrified six-year-old who wouldn't let go of his shirt. At least when Sammy had been that needy, Dean had had less time to focus on his own fears.

And if the thought of being tossed into a foster home without his brother no longer scared the wits out of Sam, it sure as hell still terrified Dean.

He may not have cried that night they'd been taken into care. But he had the night after, locked away in the bathroom where Sammy couldn't see him, light switched off so he wouldn't have to look at himself in the mirror, head buried on his knees as the shock of the whole thing finally got the better of him.

God, he'd broken that poor kid's arm. What had he been thinking?

"Maybe we should call Pastor Jim?" Sammy suggested, always calm in a crisis.

Those had always been Dad's instructions, after all, Dean found himself thinking. And Sam knew Dad's instructions every bit as well as he did.

Although Dad had never answered Dean's question – "What if you don't come back?" – he had drilled it into his sons enough times that, besides himself and each other, Pastor Jim was the one person on this earth they could truly trust.

Dean glanced at the telephone clinging to the side of the rapidly-emptying food cupboard and considered his options. He'd already checked the level of their provisions that morning: a can of baked beans, half a packet of Oreo's and a box of Froot Loops. The fridge, however, was unfortunately devoid of milk to go with the Froot Loops, and currently contained only a bottle of dried up tomato ketchup and a bulb of garlic. No matter how low their supplies became, Dean could never understand how their fridge always came to harbour a bulb of garlic.

Digging in his pocket, he pulled out two crumpled dollar bills, a quarter, three pennies and a button. He wasn't exactly sure where the button had come from or how it had found its way into the pocket of his jeans, but he was pretty certain that he couldn't exchange it for a pack of M and M's at the local Wal-Mart.

Sam looked at the money in Dean's hand and frowned. "You could always sell a kidney," he offered, expression deadly serious, as Sam's expression generally was. At the blank look on his brother's face, he clarified, "Like that guy on TV."

Dean remembered that show, throwing Sammy a grimace and the snapped retort, "_You_ sell a kidney!"

Sam had smiled at that, relieved to see some of Normal Dean peeking out of Worried Dean's eyes. "Or you could call Pastor Jim."

Although Dean was always acutely aware when Sam was manipulating him, it rarely stopped him caving in to the younger boy's will. "Alright, already!" he conceded, throwing up his hands and reaching for the phone. "I'll call Pastor Jim!"

It was at that exact second that a loud rapping on the front door caused Sam to jump backwards like a startled rabbit, while Dean drew his hand back from the phone as if it was electrified.

The boys' eyes locked in mutual apprehension, until a second, third and finally a succession of knocks followed quickly on the echo of the first: Morse Code for 'Sunday', which, of course, today was.

Dad's signal.

Dean's heart missed a beat, relief for one brief moment flooding over him like a chocolate tidal wave.

"Dad's home?" Sam frowned, and Dean recognised his brother's words as a question rather than a statement of fact. Neither of the boys had seen their father – had seen _anyone_ – approach the apartment, a fact with which, Sam was sure, Dean would no doubt berate himself later, while a quick glance through the kitchen window revealed no sign of Dad's gleaming black Chevy Impala parked on the street outside, either.

The brief feeling of elation quickly turned to a lead weight in Dean's stomach.

He glanced from the door to Sammy and back again, before his eyes came to rest on the loaded shotgun his Dad always left propped by the door whenever he had to leave the boys by themselves.

The mantra, _Shoot first, ask questions later_, started to pound through Dean's head, where common sense had long been driven out by instinct and exhaustive training. _Protect Sammy, Protect Sammy, Protect_…

"Or we could see who's at the door," Sam broke in on Dean's instinctive 'kill or be killed' response as if he'd read the older boy's thoughts like a teleprompter scrolling across his forehead.

Dean just looked at him.

Open. Freakin'. Book.

Sam smiled at him sweetly, before inching over to the door, standing on tiptoe and peering through the peephole.

"Huh," he said, turning to Dean, who by this time had his fingers on the butt of the shotgun. "Not a demon."

Dean shrugged. "So?" he asked. "What is it?"

Sam took another peek through the spyhole before mirroring Dean's shrug. "Some guy," he replied, relinquishing his spot so that his brother could take a look.

There was something vaguely familiar about the decidedly ordinary-looking man currently waiting patiently on the doorstep, but Dean couldn't quite figure out what. Average height – certainly shorter than Dad, average build – certainly less muscular than Dad. Sandy blond hair. Hazel eyes.

He certainly didn't look like one of Dad's friend.

He was wearing a suit, for starters.

But he _did_ know the signal…

Reluctantly relinquishing his tentative hold on the shotgun, Dean shook his head before deciding that, as usual, his geeky kid brother was probably right.

"Who's there?" he called, trying to make his voice sound deeper, but only succeeding in sounding like a kid trying to make his voice sound deeper.

It was Sam's turn to shake his head. "Lame, dude," he muttered, garnering a grimace and a slap to the back of his head.

The man on the doorstep coughed uncertainly. "I – I'm looking for Dean or Samuel Winchester," he managed tentatively, his right hand fumbling nervously with something in his jacket pocket.

Sam's eyes widened, and Dean briefly reconsidered the shotgun response, before asking, "Who wants them?" just like he'd heard Dad ask a hundred times. The guy looked like a social worker, and Dean had seen his Dad deal with enough of them to know what _not_ to say.

The man laughed a little apprehensively. "Yeah. Right. God, I'm _such_ an idiot!" he laughed again, voice sounding high and strangled. "Your Dad sent me."

Dean and Sam exchanged a worried look.

"He's been – er – held up," the guy continued. "Didn't want you guys left on your own any longer."

Dean frowned suspiciously, not the most trusting boy at the best of times. He guessed he'd just been raised to believe the worst of people.

"Did I get the signal right?" the man asked, sounding ever more nervous. "Because I don't really know Morse Code, and…"

"Who are you?" Dean demanded then, irrationally irritated by the guy's incessant wittering.

The man laughed again, although the tone had changed, almost sounding regretful. "God, you probably don't remember me," he burst out, and Dean could see him run a hand across his creased forehead. "That's Dean, right?" When Dean refused to confirm or deny, the man continued, "Last time I saw you, you were just a little thing – it was just after your Mom…" the guy stopped abruptly, coughing again to cover his embarrassment. "Well," he continued. "Just after. You were four, I think."

"Jeez, enough with my life story, man," Dean muttered under his breath, waiting for the guy to finish.

Sam caught his attention. "But how does he know…?" He let the question hang in the space between them, until the man continued.

"I'm Ian."

Like that was supposed to mean something.

"Your – erm – your Uncle. Remember? Uncle Ian. Your Mom's brother."

The question mark floating between the two brothers exploded into an exclamation point, as Dean shook his head vehemently at Sam, whose eyes had grown to the size of saucers.

"No way," Dean mouthed the words, continuing to shake his head, a more than emphatic negative that Sammy couldn't possibly misinterpret.

He didn't remember an Uncle. He didn't remember an Uncle at all.

When Dean finally found his voice, it was to yell, "My Mom didn't have a brother," which kind of gave away the whole 'Who's asking?' tough guy don't-give-up-your-identity thing.

The man on the doorstep laughed awkwardly. "I told your Dad you'd never remember me," he said. "I told him you wouldn't believe me, with or without his damn signal." His tone had altered ever so slightly, and Dean could hear him cursing to himself through clenched teeth. "Goddamned cloak and dagger ex-Marine crap…"

"Maybe we should open the door?"

Dean recognised the glint in Sammy's eyes, the look of enraptured hope making its way across his features.

Dean knew what Sam was thinking.

Mom's family had _finally_ come to rescue them, to take them away to that fairytale place where little kids went to school and played soccer and didn't have to learn the finer points of bone-burning.

That place called Normal, USA.

"Don't even think it, Sammy," Dean muttered, glancing back at the door just as the guy started jabbering again.

"Your Dad and I, well…" he paused awkwardly. "We had kind of a falling out. Right after your Mom… Well, we haven't really spoken since." Another awkward pause. "For him to call me, to ask me for my help, he must have been in quite a jam, and real worried about you guys. Must have figured, you know, only living relative and all that. Plus, I only live a few towns over – "

"You live near here?" Sammy burst out excitedly, garnering another slap from his big brother. "Ow!" he frowned at Dean, who just shook his head at him.

"You _so_ must have been adopted," the older boy declared, taking another peek through the peephole.

"Sammy?" Ian asked. "Is that you? God, I'm so looking forward to meeting you face to face! You were just a little baby the last time I saw you!"

Sam beamed, eyes shining as he fairly bounced with excitement, despite the dark looks his brother was throwing in his direction.

"Sap," Dean muttered, before turning his attention back to the guy on the doorstep. "Why should we believe you?" he demanded, trying to convince himself that there wasn't a small, Sammy-sized part of him secretly yearning to believe him.

There was a brief pause before Ian's voice returned. "Ask me anything. Anything about your Mom. I'll bet I know the answer."

Dean bit his lip. Even if the guy on the doorstep _wasn't_ Mom's brother, he probably knew more about Mary Winchester than either of her sons did.

"We could talk about this inside…?" the disembodied voice added.

Sam exchanged a pleading look with his big brother. "Please, Dean?" he wheedled. "After all, you're the one with the shotgun. I promise to let you shoot him if he tries anything."

Dean almost smiled, but the direness of the situation quickly brought him back to earth with a crash. "Damn straight I'll shoot him," he agreed, expression every bit as serious as Sam's usually was. "Uncle, human or neither."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

_Stupid, stupid, stupid_, the little voice in the back of Dean's head was screaming at him as he slowly unbolted the front door and lifted the latch.

God, what was he doing? This guy could be a child molester. Or a demon. Or both.

He almost stopped as he slowly began to open the door, but Sammy had grabbed hold of the handle and wrenched it open before Dean even knew what had happened.

The guy standing on the doorstep beamed down at them, trying to pretend he wasn't even slightly perturbed by the antagonistic scowl on the older boy's face.

"Wow, you guys got big!" he exclaimed, offering his hand to Dean as if to acknowledge his current status as head of the rapidly dwindling Winchester household.

Some of Dad's friends had tried this tactic with Dean too in an often futile attempt to overcome the boy's exceptionally highly-developed ingrained sense of general mistrust.

Pastor Jim. Caleb. Bobby. Dean had only ever lowered his defences for them. And even then, not completely. There were some walls Dean would never let down, not even for Sammy.

Nonetheless, he took the proffered hand and shook it dutifully, the man's skin oddly cool and a hell of a lot softer than any of Dad's friends' hands had ever been.

"It's good to see you again, Dean," Ian said, smiling sadly. "Even if you don't remember my having seen you previously."

Dean didn't reply, resisting the urge to wipe his hand on his t-shirt while Sammy enthusiastically took up the welcome wagon slack.

"Come in, Uncle Ian!" he insisted, catching the man by his sleeve and pulling him over the threshold into the kitchen.

Ian seemed a touch surprised by the little boy's eagerness, but responded to it a hell of a lot better than to Dean's suspicious frown. "God, Sammy," he said, appraising the kid as he simultaneously took in his rather bleak surroundings. "I can't believe how tall you are!"

He put his hands on Sam's shoulders, barely registering Dean's instinctive move towards him at the sudden action, and it took all of Dean's self-control not to scream the words reverberating through his skull out loud, _Get your hands the hell off my brother!_

Dean bit his lip hard, the blissfully ecstatic smile on Sammy's face like a knife plunged into his chest.

Ian continued to size Sammy up, hands still resting on his shoulders. "What are you," he asked. "Seven? Eight?"

"Eight," Sam confirmed proudly, grinning from ear to ear, and Dean couldn't help thinking how, for the first time, Sam actually looked like a normal eight-year-old kid just then.

Ian nodded, returning the smile. "Eight," he echoed. "Big boy now, huh? You were just a baby last time I saw you."

Dean's scowl intensified. "And when was that again?" he asked.

Ian's smile faltered slightly, Dean's question throwing him off balance. "Er, let me think," he began, just as Sam decided to play host by leading him into the kitchen and indicating for him to sit at the rusty metal table.

At least the little one hadn't grown up completely wild.

"It was – it was some weeks after…" Ian swallowed. "After the fire," he replied, smiling weakly at Sam before returning Dean's accusatory gaze. "You and your Dad were staying with some neighbours across the street."

That much Dean could vaguely remember.

Another sad smile seemed to drift across Ian's face, and he looked down at his hands as they came to rest on the cool tabletop.

Sam had taken one of the chairs opposite, one foot tucked beneath him on the seat as he gazed in rapt wonder at this newfound relative, while Dean stood slightly behind him, the shotgun never too far away from his fingers or his thoughts.

Ian looked up at Dean then, his eyes sparkling with unshed tears as he finally found his voice. "God," he said quietly, meeting the boy's almost hostile stare. "You were such a broken little thing."

Dean shifted uncomfortably, cheeks colouring as Sam cast him the briefest of inquisitive glances before returning his attention to his Uncle.

Ian seemed to shake himself mentally before continuing. "I'm relieved, you know…" he faltered, not exactly encouraged by the unrelenting frostiness in Dean's gaze. "That you started talking again." The concerned smile seemed almost genuine. "I wanted to take you to a therapist, but your Dad wouldn't hear of it." His voice had grown bitter, his eyes averted from Dean's as they returned to their examination of his hands. "Said you'd 'snap out of it' on your own. Just couldn't accept the fact that his son might have needed a little help getting over…" he stopped again, eyes locking with Dean's as the boy's seemingly constant scowl slipped ever-so-slightly. "Well," he said, sensing the need to change the subject. "Just one of the things on which your Dad and I didn't see eye to eye."

"Is that why you didn't keep in touch with us?" Sam asked, sounding almost hopeful. "Is that why you didn't see us any more?"

Ian frowned, and again Dean couldn't help thinking his expression looked kind of genuine. "What – you never got the cards – the presents I sent you?"

Sam's forehead crinkled, accusing eyes flitting straight to Dean, who merely shrugged.

The smile on Ian's face had gone, replaced by an unmistakeable mask of anger. "Birthdays?" he said, not wanting to believe this. "Christmas?"

Sam shook his head silently, flinching slightly as his erstwhile Uncle thumped his fist against the tabletop, causing it to wobble precariously.

"Why'd he bother giving me a damn Post Office Box number to send stuff to if he wasn't going to pass on the stuff I sent to you?"

Sam looked decidedly indignant. "You think Daddy deliberately didn't give us the stuff you sent us?"

Ian covered Sam's hand with his own, causing Dean another involuntary spasm of movement, before meeting the younger boy's devastated gaze. "I'm sure whatever your Dad did, he did for a reason," he said neutrally, and Dean half-wished the guy had berated his Dad just a little, if only to give Dean a rational reason to hate him.

"But that's just mean," Sammy observed, sticking out his bottom lip in the well-practiced Sammy Pout.

Ian shrugged. "When your Dad took off with you guys, it took me six months to track him down and another three to convince him to give me that much – a Post Office Box number." The man shook his head slightly, squeezing Sam's hand. "I don't know," he said, somehow affected by the look of betrayal on the boy's face. "Don't be too hard on your Dad." He pushed one of Sammy's stray curls out of his eyes and Dean actually flinched. "I said some pretty awful things to him before he left Lawrence."

"Like what?" Sam asked, fascinated by this mine of information sitting opposite him, this man who could fill in all the gaps of Sam's early life that his Dad would never talk about.

It had always been left to Dean to tell Sammy about their Mom. Dad never talked about her. Ever. And that annoyed the hell out of Sam, especially as, unlike Dean, he had never seen the old man crying as he gazed at her photograph.

Ian sighed heavily, shifting awkwardly on the uncomfortable metal chair. "The way your Dad started to act after Mary – after your Mom… We all thought it was the stress taking its toll. I mean, none of us thought for a minute he actually _believed_ the crazy he stuff he started to talk about."

"What crazy stuff?" Sam prodded.

Ian looked down at him, forcing a smile onto his face to mask something darker. "Oh, nothing you need to worry about, kiddo," he said reassuringly.

_Patronising bastard_, Dean found himself thinking, bristling at the guy's use of Sammy's nickname, the nickname only Dad was allowed to use. _Like we don't know what 'crazy stuff' you're talking about_.

"But – you know – " Ian continued. "Me. Your Dad's friends. Your Mom's friends. We worried. Not just for him, although we were worried as hell about him. No, we worried for you kids. We wanted to make sure you were safe, that was all…"

"Why would we not have been safe with Dad?" Dean put in then, his voice as hard and as cold as ice.

Ian looked at Dean for the first time in a good few minutes, his attention for the most part having been devoted to Sam. "Well," he began, not breaking eye contact with the older boy, clearly measuring each word as it left his mouth. "Some of us started to fear for your Dad's sanity." He inclined his head to one side. "You know what that word means, right?"

Sam rolled his eyes. "We're not stupid," he said, glancing at Dean just to make sure he actually _did_ know what the word meant.

Dean just looked back at him, before replying, more to Sam than to Ian, "You thought Dad was nuts?"

Ian bit his lip and tried to keep the compassionate smile in place. "No," he said, carefully. "Not 'nuts'. Just – just troubled. He'd just lost his wife, after all, and his home; and he'd found himself left with two little boys to take care of by himself. It was perfectly understandable that he should be stressed – "

"We know what that word means, too," Dean put in at the look on his Uncle's face.

Ian smiled again and nodded. "But he'd started talking to some pretty crazy people who were filling his head with a bunch of crazy stuff… And then there was the time he almost _killed_ you…" Ian stopped abruptly, suddenly realising that in his determination to excuse his actions in the face of his oldest nephew's hostility, he may have gone too far.

Both Dean and Sam just stared at him, Sam's mouth hanging open while Dean's had compressed into a thin white line.

Sam, unusually, found his voice first. "Dad nearly killed _Dean_?" he echoed, disbelief obvious on his sceptical features.

Ian shifted again, awkwardly, unsure whether he should continue. "That was unfair," he stammered. "I shouldn't have said that."

"Yes you should!" Sam burst out. "We need to know this stuff and Dad never tells us _anything_!"

Ian glanced from Sam to Dean, who was still staring at him with those big accusing eyes of his. He looked back at Sam before continuing. "I honestly don't think he knew what he was doing," he said, trying to explain. "Kept saying he had to make sure Dean wasn't – " he broke off again, glancing back over at the older boy. "We found him holding your head under the water in the bathtub," he managed finally. "And when we tried to pull him off you, he kept screaming that he had to know if 'it' had got you, that if it had, then it would manifest and save you. Whatever the hell that meant." He shook his head and shifted his attention back to Sam. "And I think when he'd done with your brother you were going to be next in the water, Sammy." He ran his hand across his forehead. "God knows what would have happened if we hadn't heard you screaming."

Sam's eyes widened, and he just turned to stare at Dean, whose expression, for the first time in his life, Sam just couldn't read.

_I'm so sorry, Dean, I'm so sorry!_

Dad's words echoed through Dean's head then as, just for a second, he vaguely remembered his wet, shivering body being clutched so hard to his father's chest that he thought his ribs would break.

_I had to know. I had to know._

Dean shuddered involuntarily, the half-memory taking him so completely by surprise that it was all he could do to stay on his feet.

Had that really happened? Or was he remembering wrong? Dad would never hurt him. _Never_.

"It was after that," Ian was saying, his voice sounding a hundred miles away. "That I threatened to – to fight your Dad for custody. I just wanted to make sure you were safe, that was all. Mary would never have forgiven me if I'd let anything happen to her boys."

"What happened then?" Sammy asked breathlessly.

Ian shrugged. "Next morning, your Dad had taken you and gone. Just upped and left. No forwarding address, no explanation, no clue to where he was going, where he was taking you." Ian touched Sammy's hair again, eyes far away, as if he was remembering something else, something he hadn't given voice to.

Dean took another step forward, more worried by the look on Sammy's face than the look on their Uncle's.

He was losing him.

Goddammit, five minutes with a relative from Planet Normal and Sam was already slipping away.

Dean had expected it to happen sooner, when the kid started school and realised he _wasn't_ really a freak for not wanting to learn how to hold a shotgun, or make silver bullets or hunt the things that lurked in his closet at night. But Dad had moved them around so much that Sammy had only glimpsed that world, never really tasted it.

Until now.

Here it was, laid out in front of him in the shape of a Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free-shaped Uncle who they hadn't even known existed.

Ian seemed to come to himself then, the smile returning to his full lips. "So you can imagine how surprised I was when your Dad called me this morning," he said, the forced cheerfulness returning to his voice.

Dean seized on his words. "Is he okay? Where is he? When's he coming back?"

It was the most animated Ian had seen his older nephew, but unfortunately he couldn't really answer any of the boy's questions. "All I know is what he told me," he replied, causing Dean's momentarily hopeful expression to fall. "He said he'd run into a bit of a situation, and he wasn't going to be able to get back to you guys for a few days, and then he asked me if you could come stay with me for a while."

Sammy's eyes lit up like a Christmas tree. "We're coming to stay with you?" he burst out, barely containing his excitement.

Ian grinned. "Sure!" he confirmed, before glancing briefly at Dean. "If that's alright with you guys."

Dean's stomach did a back flip. He knew the guy didn't need his permission to take them wherever the hell he wanted. And who else was there to object on their behalf?

Involuntarily, he glanced at the phone again, and thought about calling Pastor Jim.

Ian followed his gaze, and, as if reading his thoughts, asked, "Someone you want to call first?"

Dean glanced at Sammy, at the look of completely ecstatic excitement on his face, and slowly shook his head. "Where'd you say you lived?"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Reviews, as always, more than welcome!


	3. Chapter 2

**A/N: **Well I'm actually getting to post this a bit faster than expected. Lots of people seem to be looking at it, but not many reviewing, which leaves me wondering if you're all just too kind to tell me how rubbish it is...

**Geographical Note: **Apologies if I've got the geography all wrong - imagine how confused I was to discover Kansas City was in Missouri - although some of it's in Kansas. I mean what's all that about?

**Disclaimer: **So I still don't own Supernatural and I definitely don't own Kansas. Although if I did, I'd see what the hell they put in the water there... I mean the Winchesters _and_ Clark Kent / Lex Luthor (Smallville Brand of course)? You're not telling me that's just Kryptonite... Demonic Kryptonite maybe. Ah I think I've solved it... The Demon is _actually_ General Zod and this is his attempt to take over the world using very pretty actors... OK I'm rambing now... Here's Chapter Two.

_**Chapter Two**_

Dean hadn't realised how close they'd been to Kansas these last few months.

So it came as something of a shock when the drive from Gladstone, Missouri to Manhattan, Kansas only took three hours, including a couple of rest stops when Uncle Ian insisted on buying them ice cream.

Geography always had been more Sammy's thing.

He wondered briefly whether Dad had deliberately not told them how perilously close Gladstone actually was to Lawrence. Dean had an almost pathological aversion to the place, and even being in Kansas again made him more than a little nervous.

Uncle Ian's car was the total opposite of Dad's creaky old Chevy – brand spanking new and just out of the box, with electric windows and air conditioning and a little plastic cup holder for your coffee.

Dean preferred the Impala.

For some reason, he'd acquiesced to Sam's pleading and let the kid sit up front, while he sat glowering in the back seat, feeling completely cut out of the animated conversation going on between his brother and their Uncle.

So this Ian guy. Seemed kind of alright. For a guy in a suit.

He'd let them bring as much of their stuff as they wanted. Which wasn't saying a lot, but Sammy had got to bring all of his precious books, which made him even happier than he already was. And usually, whatever made Sammy happy made Dean happy.

Dean wasn't exactly happy, but Ian did have one thing in his favour: He hadn't turned into a monster yet. Which was always a good thing.

Dean had sighed when he could no longer see their apartment through the car's big rear window. It may have been a crappy dump, but it almost felt like Dean's last link to his Dad had gone when they rounded that corner and it disappeared from view. For a second, he'd almost panicked – how would Dad know where to find them if they weren't at the apartment? But then he remembered – he knew where Uncle Ian lived.

That made him feel a little happier.

He returned his attention to the front of the car, where Ian was letting Sammy choose which disc to put into his new CD player.

Dean had never seen a CD player in a car before, and grimaced at the music assaulting his eardrums: the crackly stuff Dad played on the Impala's cassette deck was _way_ cooler.

At least the brevity of the journey meant less of the awful music, Dean figured, as Ian declared, "This is it!" before turning into the driveway of one of the biggest houses Dean had seen in his life.

"You live _here_?" Sammy breathed, awestruck, as he turned his huge eyes upwards to examine the big white house towering over him, perfectly manicured lawn stretching down to the recently-swept sidewalk which ran underneath the two big oak trees on either side of the yellow-stoned path.

Sam's breath caught in his throat as Uncle Ian winked at him before pushing a button mounted on the car's dashboard.

"Get a load of this."

The bright yellow garage door then proceeded to open as if by magic, and Sam couldn't have wiped the amazed grin off his face if he'd tried.

Dean folded his arms across his chest and ground his teeth together, as Sam and Ian shared the wonder of the automatic garage door. _Big freakin' deal_, he thought to himself. _Nowhere near as cool as that eight foot werewolf Dad bagged with his last silver bullet that time_.

He continued with random thoughts like these throughout the tour Ian proceeded to give them of the cavernous house – "You mean we get a room _each_, Uncle Ian? You have satellite TV, Uncle Ian? You have a games room? You have a swimming pool…?"

The swimming pool was the final straw.

Sammy looked like he'd died and gone to heaven.

There was only one brief instant during Uncle Ian's Grand Tour that gave Dean any cause for concern.

Exploring the ground floor, past the huge stainless steel kitchen, the den and the games room – Dean had spied an innocuous-looking white wooden door nestling inconspicuously beneath the back stairs.

"What's in there?" he'd asked, curiosity getting the better of him as he reached out to touch the big brass padlock barring the entrance.

Ian had caught his hand in a flurry of unexpected motion then, pulling him from the door with a jerk so hard and so sudden it hurt his wrist. "You're not allowed down there," he had fairly barked, looking down at the two startled boys with flinty eyes. Then, as if suddenly recognising the look of stunned pain on the eldest's face, he had released his vice-like grip on Dean's fingers, face and eyes softening as he smiled apologetically. "Only two places you're not allowed, boys," he'd said, voice noticeably warmer. "This is one of them."

Sam and Dean had looked up at him expectantly, the latter rubbing at his hand like it was on fire.

Ian's smile never wavered. "That's my workshop, down there in the basement," he'd explained. "I've got all kinds of tools down there that would be more than capable of taking off little fingers without the slightest hesitation. Don't want you boys getting hurt while you're here, do we? What would your Dad say?" He'd laughed then, a forced unnatural sound.

Dean had kept his face purposely neutral. "And the other place?" he'd asked, trying not to sound too interested in Ian's other No Go Zone.

His Uncle had frowned. "The what?" he'd asked.

Dean had shrugged then, his face as innocent as he could possibly make it. "Where's the other place we're not allowed to go?"

Comprehension dawned on Ian's face, and he chuckled softly. "Oh," he'd said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder as if this was really no big deal. "The old shed behind the pool. That's my garage. More tools with serious kid-hurting potential in there."

Dean had nodded obediently, filing the information for another time, the basement and the shed having, quite inexplicably, moved to the top of his _Places to Check Out First_ list.

But for now, here Dean was, feet swinging as he perched himself on the edge of the bed in a bedroom big enough to accommodate most of the motel rooms he and Sammy had grown up in for the past eight years, staring at the off-white walls and the slatted wooden blinds and wondering how the hell to fill the other twenty-eight minutes of the half hour Uncle Ian had allotted him to unpack his stuff.

Dean's 'stuff' consisted of two pairs of jeans, four t-shirts, a couple of changes of underwear and the world's oldest Walkman.

The Walkman had been one of the few birthday presents he ever remembered getting off Dad – he figured the old man probably found it abandoned in some gas station rest room or other. It hadn't actually worked right away, but with a bit of tinkering Dean had coaxed it into life. Although finding batteries continued to be something of an art form. Still, no-one ever bothered to check the TV remote control when you checked out of a motel room, did they?

Dean looked at the clunky cassette player, the Metallica tape he'd 'borrowed' from Dad's stash in the Impala clearly visible through the clear plastic door.

He felt suddenly homesick. Not for Missouri or that crappy apartment. He felt homesick for Dad. For Dad's car.

And for Sammy.

Dean hadn't slept in a separate room to Sam since he was four years old, and although he knew his brother was only next door, where he could hear him chattering away to Uncle Ian and laughing a weird, carefree kind of laugh that Dean didn't remember ever having heard before, he felt as if they may as well have been a thousand miles apart.

He brushed angrily at a tear that had stubbornly refused to stay in his eye and was making its way slowly down his cheek, before jumping down from the bed and mentally ordering himself to pull it together.

He still didn't entirely trust Ian, despite the ice cream, the big house, the swimming pool and the not-having-turned-into-a-monster-yet, and that meant that his primary function in life – _watch out for Sammy_ – was still his top priority.

And here he was, having known this Ian guy for all of half a day, trusting him with his kid brother.

Dad would have had his freakin' head on a stick.

As quietly as he was able, Dean padded over to the big white bedroom door, half expecting it to be locked as he grasped the handle and pulled.

He was almost surprised when it opened without a fight.

Okay, so maybe he was being just a little bit paranoid.

Carefully following the sound of Sammy's – was that a _giggle_? – giggly voice, Dean tiptoed the six feet down the hallway to what had, for today at least, been designated 'Sam's Room'.

The door was slightly ajar, and although Dean's first instinct was to tumble right into the room uninvited, something about the tone of Ian's voice made him pause, hand hovering uncertainly over the door knob.

"It must have been tough," Ian was saying, his voice low and serious, as if he and Sam had just shared the best joke in the world, but now it was time to get down to business.

Dean peered through the crack in the doorway, where he could see Ian sitting on the edge of Sam's bed, his back to the door, Sam sitting facing him, looking up at him with a question mark in his big inquisitive eyes.

"Growing up," Ian clarified, without Sam even having to put his thoughts into words. "Just you, your Dad and your brother."

Sam shrugged noncommittally. "I guess," he agreed. "Sometimes."

"Don't you get along with your Dad?"

Dean silently cursed that he couldn't see Ian's expression just then, wondering why the hell he had asked Sammy that.

Sam shrugged again, a little too slow in answering the question for Dean's liking. "We get along okay," he said, his voice flat and almost emotionless. Very unlike Sammy. "We fight sometimes," he added. "Mostly when Dean's not around."

"Yeah?" Ian sounded genuinely interested. Maybe a little _too_ interested, and Dean couldn't help recalling the guy using that 'Custody' word earlier. "What d'you fight about?"

Sam's eyes slid down to examine the bedspread a little too intently. "Stuff," he said, an answer only an eight-year-old would think sufficed as an explanation.

"But you don't fight when Dean's around?"

Sam looked back up at his Uncle and shook his head. "Nuh-uh," he said. "Dean doesn't like it when we fight, so I try really hard to be good when he's there."

"And it's when you're being bad that you and your Dad fight?"

Sam frowned then. "I guess…" he faltered. "Sometimes…" he stumbled over the words, and Dean involuntarily clenched his fists as Ian caught hold of the boy's hand.

_Get off, get off, get off…_

"It's okay, Sam," Ian said. "You can tell me anything. Even if you don't think I'll believe you."

Dean froze, every muscle tense. He felt as if someone had just tipped a bucket of ice water down his back.

Why was he asking Sammy stuff like that? The guy was after something.

The guy was after their secret…

Sam continued to meet his Uncle's gaze evenly, before shrugging again. "Sometimes Dad makes us do stuff he thinks we want to do, but we don't really want to do it. Or at least," he added, examining the bedspread some more. "_I_ don't want to do it."

Dean was really glad Ian wasn't a social worker just then, as he was pretty sure if he had been, he and Sam would have been whisked off to the nearest children's shelter before their feet had time to touch the ground.

"What – " Ian faltered. "What kind of things?"

"Hunting," Sam replied instantly.

Dean saw Ian's shoulders relax visibly, and he let out a strangled laugh of obvious relief. "Well, you're a little young to be hunting, Sam!"

Sam's face lit up. "That what _I_ keep telling him!" he burst out. "And even when I'm Dean's age, I _still_ don't want to!"

There was a pause, before Ian said, "Well, we'll have to see what we can do about that."

What the hell did _that_ mean?

"And what about Dean?" Ian continued suddenly. "How do you get on with him?"

Uh-oh. Well now Dean just felt like a no-good sneak and _knew_ he really ought to turn away and go back to his room.

But he didn't

Sam considered his answer for a few seconds, face screwed up with the effort. "He's my big brother," he replied finally, as if that should be answer enough.

When he didn't continue, Ian prodded, "But you get along?"

There was that shrug again.

"We get along okay."

Okay? _Okay?_

"But he can be a jerk sometimes."

Dean really wished he'd gone back to his room.

"Treats me like I'm some helpless little kid he has to take care of all the time."

"Hate to break it to you, kiddo," Ian said. "But you _are_ a little kid. And besides, big brothers are _supposed_ to take care of their little brothers or sisters."

Dean was starting to warm to Uncle Ian…

"Did you take care of Mom?"

Long pause.

"I tried."

Even longer pause.

"But that's what I meant earlier…" Typical big brother change of subject manoeuvre. Dean knew it well. "It must be tough without your Mom to do stuff for you."

"What kind of stuff?"

Dean could see the genuine non-comprehension in his brother's eyes: How the hell would _he_ know what Mom's were supposed to do?

That look almost broke Dean's heart.

"Well," Ian continued, apparently oblivious to Sam's confusion. "How about when you have a nightmare? Who gives you a hug and tells you it was just a dream and everything's okay?"

"Dean," Sam replied without thinking.

_Damn straight he does…_

Another pause.

"He sounds like a pretty good big brother to me."

Another shrug.

"He's okay."

There was that word again. _I'll give him 'okay'!_

"So," measuring his words carefully. "You have a lot of nightmares, Sam?"

Sam expertly sidestepped the question. "I like it that you call me 'Sam'," he said, smiling up at his Uncle. "Dad and Dean still _insist_ on calling me 'Sammy', like I'm six or something!"

"Sam's a real grown-up name," Ian laughed. "I'll call you Sam if that's what you'd like."

"I'd like."

"Okay. Sam. So. You have a lot of nightmares?"

Dean frowned. This guy was _way_ too interested in Sam's nightmares for his liking…

"Some," Sam replied slowly, not exactly telling the whole truth. A more accurate description would have been 'lots'.

"Yeah," Dean could see Ian nodding. "I used to when I was your age. Really freaky ones sometimes. You know sometimes – okay, don't laugh – but sometimes, I swear it was as if some of them came true."

Dean's hand closed convulsively around the door knob, while Sam continued to gaze evenly at Ian.

"You – you ever have dreams – nightmares – like that, Sam?" Ian continued, voice innocent and apparently devoid of any ulterior motive. "Where it was almost as if it came true?"

Anxious to see the expression on Ian's unreadable face, Dean leaned a little harder on the door than he'd meant, causing it to swing open just a fraction wider.

Sam involuntarily glanced towards him as the sudden movement drew his attention away from his Uncle.

Without even turning round and with a voice as hard as nails, Ian asked, "You need something, Dean?"

Dean froze, unsure what to do now. How the hell had Ian known he was there?

For a second, he just stood there, eyes locked with Sam's, the younger boy's expression one of startled guilt, as if he'd just been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Not that they ever _had_ a cookie jar. But Dean was pretty sure that this is what Sam would have looked like if they had.

"N-No," Dean managed to reply weakly, still watching Sammy. "I just thought…"

"Your brother doesn't blink out of existence when you're not around, Dean," Ian informed him, an edge to his voice that hadn't been there when he was buying them ice cream.

"I – I thought he might – might need me…" Dean glanced uncertainly from Ian, who still hadn't turned to face him, back to Sam, whose eyes had never left his big brother's.

"Sam's a big boy now, Dean," Ian continued. "He can manage without you."

Dean swallowed. "No he can't – " he began, but was cut off by Sam's quietly insistent response.

"Yes he can."

Dean took a step backwards, as if physically repelled by Sam's words, a look of complete shock on his face as he searched Sam's eyes for some sign that he hadn't really meant what he'd just said.

But he found none.

Ian still refused to turn and look at Dean as he said calmly, "Don't forget to close the door on your way out."

For a second, Dean just stood there, mouth slightly open, eyes still locked with Sam's.

And then Sammy looked away.

And Dean knew it was over.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dean sighed as he counted the last of the pitted white ceiling tiles above his head for the twentieth time.

He'd heard Ian say goodnight to Sam about a half hour ago, and hadn't heard a single sound since the gentle 'click' of Sam's door.

Although Ian had knocked at his door and asked him if he wanted a slice of pizza a couple of hours earlier, Dean had stubbornly refused to reply, rolling onto his stomach to try and stop it growling and pulling a pillow over his head so that he wouldn't hear Sammy – _Sam_ – if he called out for him.

_Ungrateful little punk_, he found himself thinking, spiralling deeper and deeper into a funk of the highest magnitude. _After everything I've done for him._

Of course, trying to convince himself he was boiling mad was a lot easier than trying to deal with the fact that he felt as if someone had gone to work on his heart with a rusty chainsaw.

_Ian and Sammy, sitting in a tree…_ the stupid old rhyme came unbidden into Dean's head. _I hope they fall off and break both their necks._

After all he'd done for Sammy, all he'd gone through, all he'd given up… He closed his eyes and tried not to think about it.

Sammy doesn't need you and neither does Dad, the little voice in his head had grown tired of berating his kid brother and had decided to pick on someone his own size. Now what are you going to do? Dad's gone and Sam's going to stay here with Uncle Ian who doesn't want you and you'll be put in a children's home with no-one to look out for you and you'll end up on fire on the ceiling…

Dean sat up, hugging the pillow to his rumbling stomach.

At twelve, he figured he was probably too young to be having one of those 'mid-life crisis' things that Dad sometimes joked about with Pastor Jim.

He'd be okay. He was tough and pretty smart when he wanted to be. He could certainly take care of himself. What did he want with a whiny eight-year-old weighing him down anyway?

He felt light-headed at the thought of shedding that extra baggage.

Light-headed and sick and dizzy and his chest hurt and he couldn't seem to breathe properly and his head ached and…

"_DEAN!"_

Sammy.

Dean threw aside the pillow and fairly launched himself off the bed, covering the distance between there and the door in the time it took for Sam to scream his name a second time.

Wrenching open the door, Dean skidded along the corridor to Sam's room, where he could hear the little guy crying and moaning pitifully.

_Nightmare._

Dean had heard enough of them to recognise the sounds instantly.

"Sammy!" he yelled, grasping the handle to his brother's room and shoving the door hard…

With absolutely no effect whatsoever.

Looking down at the door handle as he tried to figure out why it wasn't co-operating, Dean heard Sammy scream his name one more time before he realised what had happened.

Sam was locked in.

Or was Dean locked _out_?

Taking a deep breath, Dean gripped the door handle firmly, giving it another wrench and shoving his shoulder as hard as he could against the door, just like he'd seen Dad do a million times.

Although the door wouldn't budge, it shuddered in its frame enough for Dean to realise that this was no lock barring his entry.

Something else was stopping him getting in.

"Sam, I'm coming!" he yelled, kicking viciously at the door with little effect and banging his fists against the panelling in the hope that the wood might somehow miraculously splinter.

No such luck.

As Sammy's petrified screams began to intensify, so did Dean's fierce assault on the door, which seemed to give a little with every other kick, but still refused to give it up.

Hands, shoulders, feet and legs all screaming almost as loud as Sammy, Dean stopped suddenly, just as Sam's screams stopped.

For a second, all Dean could hear was his heavy breathing, the hammering of his heart and the little voice in his head, which was now yelling, _It's your fault! It's your fault! It's your fault! _

"No!" Sammy's terrified yell ripped through the distance between him and his brother. "Dean!" and then he let out the most spine-chilling scream Dean had ever heard in his life – and he'd heard a few.

And that was when Dean realised this wasn't just a nightmare.

Something was hurting Sammy.

Something was hurting his baby brother and there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Review me! Review me! (Or the cliffhanger _never_ gets resolved...!)


	4. Chapter 3

**A/N:** Ahh, bless you all for reviewing... My brief sojourn into No-Self-Confidenceland has now abated and I feel really guilty for leaving you with a cliffie. So seeing as I'm going to be at work for a very long time today, here's a short chapter to resolve it... Oh and I'm sorry if you got two alerts as I did it a bit wrong first time round... D'oh. Computers eh?_**  
**_This is actually as far as I've typed, so I'll try not to leave the next update too long!_**  
**_

_**Chapter Three**_

_Okay, don't panic,_ Dean told himself, trying to remember the calming breathing techniques his Dad had taught him, the counting to ten, the…

Hell, who was he kidding? Right now, he couldn't even think how to count to five.

Sammy screamed again, again crying out his brother's name, but this time biting off the last letter with an hysterical sob.

_God, Sammy,_ Dean thought. _What's it doing to you?_

Dean didn't know what 'it' was exactly. But right then, he didn't need to. All he needed to know was that the thing was hurting his brother, and that was enough.

Sammy let out another blood-curdling scream.

And that did the trick.

It was as if something in Dean's brain just went 'click'. And then he knew exactly what he had to do.

Sprinting for his own room, he almost tripped over the pillow he'd discarded on the floor minutes earlier, hurdling over it just in time to avoid smashing his head against the window frame.

"_There's more than one way to get into a locked room, Dean,"_ he heard his Dad telling him sagely, as with trembling fingers he grabbed hold of the window frame and attempted to shove up the sash.

But the window, like Sam's door, refused to give it up that easily, a new summer coat of paint causing it to stick stubbornly, resolutely resisting Dean's valiant attempts to throw it open.

"Come _on_!" Dean swore under his breath, slamming his hand under the frame and pushing for all he was worth. "Dammit, you want me to smash your ass?"

As if in response, he heard the paint around the frame crack, and the sash gave up all of a couple of inches.

But that was enough.

Encouraged, Dean shoved some more, bracing his already-tired legs and trying not to notice the soreness in his hands or the pounding in his head, as with a sudden _whoosh_ that almost sent him into an unintentional two-storey nosedive, the window finally opened all the way.

Sticking his head out, Dean made a quick assessment of his options – which amounted to window-ledge-don't fall – before hauling himself out onto the sloping roof of the porch beneath his room.

Sneakers struggling for purchase on the slick tiles, for a second he just clung to the window frame like an over-sized limpet, before the sound of Sammy's renewed screaming galvanised him into action, drowning out the terror, the uncertainty and the cold, hard dread attempting to lay claim to his chest and forcing him to concentrate on edging slowly towards his goal.

Six feet didn't seem like much when you were sneaking along a hallway; but when you were attempting to play Spider-Man on the side of a building fifteen feet up with only hard concrete to break any potential fall, it felt like miles.

Dean may as well have been trying to crawl over broken glass to Canada.

_Don't look down, don't look down…_ his little voice urged, for once attempting to be helpful. Unfortunately, his feet chose that moment to be just the opposite, slipping on a loose tile and sending him sliding down the roof until his foot caught in the guttering and halted his momentum with a bone-jarring crunch.

Grabbing onto the decorative joint between two sections of tiling so tight his fingers ached, Dean took a deep breath to steady himself before pulling himself carefully back up towards the side of the house, feet planted firmly sideways in an attempt to avoid any further slippage.

Reaching out a trembling hand, he had never been so happy to feel rough wood cutting into his fingers as when he finally managed to make a grab for Sammy's window frame.

Hauling himself up to the glass, he paused suddenly, almost afraid to look inside, terrified that he might see something far, far worse than his kid brother thrashing around in the throes of a terrible nightmare.

Taking another deep breath, he carefully peered over the window ledge and into Sammy's room, steeling himself for the worst, his anxious glance despite his best efforts drawn immediately to the ceiling before he dared look anywhere else.

No-one on the ceiling.

No flames.

So far so good.

Although the room was unlit, the spectacular sunset behind Dean's shoulder was enough to throw a little illumination into the darkened room, enough that he could just make out Sammy thrashing around in the bed, hair matted to his pale forehead in sweaty clumps as the little boy's hands clutched and unclutched at his bedclothes convulsively.

"Sammy…" Dean muttered, fingers finding the bottom of the sash as the Big Brother Instinct immediately drowned out all his other senses.

So much so, that it was only when he had the window open a good few inches he noticed the dark shape standing over his brother's bed.

His breath catching in his throat as his muscles instinctively tensed, Dean found himself trapped smack bang in the middle of the classic fight or flight conundrum. While his own sense of self-preservation told him to run like hell before he was seen by an unidentified enemy, his sense of duty to his brother screamed at him to get the hell through that window and get whatever that thing was the hell away from Sammy.

It was really no contest.

"I'm coming, Sammy," he whispered, shoving open the window as hard and as fast as he could in the hope that, without weapons, at least he might have the element of surprise on his side.

Not for the first time that day, he cursed the fact that the only thing Uncle Ian expressly forbade them bringing from their apartment was the shotgun.

Forcing himself quickly through the open window, Dean stopped suddenly, one foot in and one foot out, as the first proper look he got inside the room almost froze the blood in his veins.

The dark shape standing over Sammy's bed wasn't a demon, or a spirit, a Shtriga or a Succubus.

The thing standing over Sammy's bed was Uncle Ian.

And just for a split second, Dean would have sworn the guy's eyes were totally, completely white. No iris. No pupil. Just white.

Ian's eyes locked with Dean's and the former blinked.

And when his eyes re-opened, they were their usual hazel.

The two of them just stared at each other.

For one long moment that seemed to last an hour.

And then Sammy was crying, able to get out only one word between huge gulping sobs.

"Dean?"

Dean was through the window and at his brother's bedside before Ian had even properly registered he was in the room, climbing up onto the bed and pulling Sammy into a hug so tight, Dean actually thought he might break the kid.

But no way he was letting go.

"It's okay, Sammy," he said, stroking the boy's sodden hair with trembling fingers, eyes never leaving their Uncle's. "You're okay now. You're safe."

Whilst Dean wasn't entirely convinced of the accuracy of this last statement, he knew that Sam needed to hear it. "You're safe."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Kinda short, but hopefully not too mushy! Reviews welcome - but no threats this time!


	5. Chapter 4

**A/N:** Can't thank you all enough for reviewing this! Hope you're not bored yet... Bit of a talky chapter this one..._**  
**_

_**Chapter Four**_

"What the hell _are_ you?" Dean demanded, turning accusing eyes on the man who claimed to be their Uncle while clutching a trembling, sobbing Sam to his chest protectively. "What were you doing to my brother?"

Ian's face was a mask of innocent incomprehension. "What?" he said, frowning. "Dean, what are you talking about? I wasn't doing _anything_ to your brother! I heard him screaming and came in here to check if he was alright!"

"I knew you'd come," Sam was muttering helplessly, clutching at Dean's t-shirt like he had as a terrified six-year-old, eyes still glazed and unfocussed as his mind attempted to process the things it had just seen.

Momentarily distracted from his need to punch Ian's lights out, Dean returned to stroking Sam's hair in what he hoped was a soothing manner.

"Even though I was mean to you," Sam continued, his death-grip on his big brother only tightening further. "I knew you'd come."

"Sammy, don't – " Dean bit off the rest of the sentence, knowing this was _not_ the right time for that conversation, not with danger still present.

Not with Ian still in the room.

He looked back up at the man standing anxiously in front of him, his expression every bit that of a man concerned for the wellbeing of his kith and kin.

Whatever this guy was, he was good.

"What about your eyes?" Dean demanded, body still tense and alert, even as Sammy gradually started to relax against him. "I saw them go white!"

Ian frowned. "You saw _what_?" he burst out, taking a step forward which caused Dean to pull Sam further towards the opposite side of the bed. Ian raised his hands placatingly, forward momentum immediately ceased. "Dean, you didn't see my eyes go white…" he remonstrated.

"Yes I did!" Dean insisted, absolutely certain of what he'd seen.

"No," Ian shook his head and gestured towards the window. "It's dark in here. It was probably just the way the light from outside reflected on my eyes."

Dean looked a whole hell of a lot less than convinced.

"Look," Ian took another cautious step towards his charges, but stopped again when Dean's grip on his brother tightened and he looked like he might just grab Sam and rabbit. He sighed. "I know you're only looking out for your brother, Dean," he said slowly, trying to sound as understanding as possible. "And I know your Dad has probably filled your head with all kinds of crazy nonsense…"

Dean scowled ferociously. "My Dad's _not_ crazy," he insisted, voice icy.

"I didn't say he was," Ian agreed. "But he – uh – he has some strange ideas about the world that I'm sure he must have passed on to you and Sam."

Dean didn't comment, but became suddenly aware of Sam's having lifted his tear-stained face from his chest to look carefully at their Uncle.

Ian noticed the movement too, smiling benevolently at the younger boy. "See?" he said. "Sam's not scared of me. Are you, Sam?"

Dean glanced down at Sam, who was now staring fixedly at Ian. "Sammy?"

Sam shook his head slowly, causing Ian's smile to brighten considerably, but Dean didn't miss the fact that his little brother's grip on him tightened still further while he continued to tremble almost uncontrollably.

Sammy was scared. He just didn't want Ian to know he was scared.

Way too smart for an eight-year-old.

"There, you see?" Ian said, beaming. He took another step towards the boys, and this time Dean felt Sam flinch ever-so-slightly. "Right now we should be worrying about how you're feeling, Sam, not on the tricks the sunset has been playing on your brother's eyesight."

Dean choked down the hostile retort that rose unconsciously into his throat, just as Sam announced in a small, tired voice, "I'm fine, Uncle Ian." His fingers tightened on Dean's shirt almost convulsively. "It was – just a nightmare."

Ian nodded, sympathy flooding his eyes. "You want to talk about it?"

Sam shook his head.

_Not with _you_ anyway…_

Ian nodded, and for a second, Dean could have sworn he looked disappointed. "Well," he said. "We'll let you sleep then." He held out a hand towards Dean, motioning him to follow. "Come on Dean, your brother needs to rest – "

"No!" Sammy burst out so suddenly both Dean and Ian nearly came out of their skin. Sam turned wide, frightened eyes up to his brother, that pleading look he had threatening to break Dean into pieces. Sam glanced back at Ian, small hands still clinging to his brother. "Can – can Dean stay here with me tonight? Just tonight? I – I don't think I'll be able to get back to sleep on my own."

Dean knew as soon as Sam spoke that the kid was barely keeping it together, could feel him shaking, could see the cold sweat on his brow.

Sure, Sam wanted Dean to stay. But he _really_ wanted Ian to go.

Ian looked from Sam to Dean and back again, the pleading expression on the younger boy's face as impossible to ignore as the determination on the elder's.

No way he was splitting these two up tonight.

He smiled placidly, inclining his head. "Sure, Sam," he said, his voice oddly cold. "Whatever makes you more comfortable."

Dean wondered what the hell _that_ meant.

Ian started to back away towards the door. "As long as you're both okay. Call me if you need anything."

Sam nodded, and Ian reluctantly turned, opening the previously jammed door with ease, turning back to look at them for a second before closing the door quietly behind him.

"What we need is Dad," Dean muttered, once the door was safely shut behind his Uncle. Sam still hadn't let go of him, and he looked down at his brother, for the first time able to concentrate on him now that the immediate threat to him was gone. "That wasn't just a nightmare, was it?" he asked.

At that, Sam crumpled, the sobs he'd been stoically holding in for the last few minutes bursting out of him in one mad, hacking rush. He shook his head almost hysterically before burying his face back against Dean's chest.

Dean, who had been kneeling on the bed ready to jump up and defend his brother with his last breath if he had to, slumped down into a sitting position, pulling Sam against his shoulder. He didn't say anything for a few minutes, just let the boy get the tears out, all the while stroking his hair and rocking him slightly.

He knew Dad would have been mad if he'd seen them. "Men don't cry," he'd told Dean enough times in the past eight years. "It's a sign of weakness and I will _not_ tolerate it in any son of mine. Understood?"

Dean had understood.

But it didn't stop him remembering the way Mom used to rock him soothingly, stroking his hair till the tears stopped and he was calm enough to tell her what was wrong.

He could at least give Sam that much of her.

Gradually, as the two of them sat in a silent, post-traumatic daze, Sam's tears became less, his breathing more even, his trembling subsiding.

But his grip on his brother remained every bit as desperately firm.

"Dean?" he said eventually, voice small and fearful.

Dean looked down at him, away from the window where he'd been watching the encroaching darkness already beginning to steal the sky. "You okay now, squirt?" he asked, hoping Sam didn't pick up on the forced lightness in his tone. He pushed a few locks of the boy's hair out of his eyes, gently wiping the remaining tears from his cheeks as Sam just gazed up at him with eyes as dark as the sky outside. All Dean could see in them was the dull ache of the aftershock and his own reflection.

Sam didn't nod. But neither did he shake his head. He just continued to stare unnervingly at his brother, almost as if he wasn't really seeing him at all.

Dean shifted, the close scrutiny making him nervous. "Earth to Sammy!" he said, as usual masking his unease with a humour he didn't really feel. "You still in there kiddo?"

Suddenly, Sam grabbed his brother round the waist so tightly Dean let out an involuntary cry as the kid once again buried his head in his t-shirt. "I don't want you to die!" he burst out. "Please don't go with Mom!"

Dean really didn't know how to respond to that.

Gently catching hold of Sam's chin, he turned the younger boy's face up towards his own, this time seeing only abject terror in his eyes.

"Sammy, I'm not gonna die," he assured the boy, stroking his hair again. "I'm not going anywhere."

"But that's what I saw!" Sam protested, eyes wide. "That's what I felt in my nightmare!"

Dean frowned. "You – you saw me die?" Although Dean thought about death more than any twelve-year-old had a right to – Mom's, Dad's, sometimes Sammy's – he'd always tried not to dwell too much on his own. Because he knew he'd never let it happen. Not as long as Sammy needed him.

Sam nodded slowly. "You were in a dark place – a deep place," he said. "The man touched you and you were all burnt up."

Dean swallowed hard. He'd been burning bones since he was seven, but had never let on to Dad how much the flames scared him.

Unsurprising really that he should have a deep-seated aversion to fire.

Dean could live with dying in any number of ways – gunshot, knife, electrocution, drowning, hex – hell, he'd even put up with going out in something as mundane as a car wreck.

But not fire. Anything but that.

He swallowed again, trying to summon his voice, which seemed to have become lost somewhere in the back of his throat. "Were you – were you there?" he asked tentatively. "When I died?"

"I was with the man."

Dean blinked. "The man who – who burnt me?"

Sam nodded.

"Okay," Dean managed. Then, "But – but dreams aren't real, Sammy. You know that. They're just dreams. They don't come true."

Sammy nodded again. "I know," he agreed, continuing to nod sagely. "Which is why I don't know why he showed me that. When he showed me the pictures, it hurt my head."

Dean frowned. "Who – someone – someone _made_ you dream that I died?" he asked, almost afraid to hear the answer.

But Sam merely nodded.

"How – how do you know that?"

Sam shrugged. "He was standing behind me."

A light went on behind Dean's eyes. "Ian? Ian was making you have bad dreams?"

Sam considered for a second. "No," he said. "It was the man with the white eyes."

Dean's eyebrows disappeared into his hair. "White eyes?" he echoed. "That was Ian! Didn't you see… Sammy, when you were dreaming, he had white eyes…"

"No," Sam shook his head resolutely. "His eyes are only half-white."

Dean's frown deepened. "Huh?" he managed. "Sammy, you been swigging from Dad's hip flask again? 'Cause you know that stuff makes you go all goofy – "

"Ian didn't make me have the dream, Dean," Sam said, voice harder, more like his old scary-smart eight-year-old self. He pulled away slightly, death-grip on his brother loosening so that only the fingers of one hand remained twisted in Dean's shirt.

Dean considered that. "So – what?" he asked. "He was just watching someone – something – else hurt you?"

Sam shrugged again. "I don't know. Maybe he was telling the truth. Maybe he _was_ only coming to see if I was alright."

"What?" Dean couldn't believe Sam was _still _sticking up for the guy. "What about the 'half-white eyes' thing?" he demanded.

Sam looked at him like he'd just sprouted horns. "The what?" he said, brow creasing.

"What you just said – " Dean prodded.

"I never said that," Sam insisted, looking at his brother blankly. "Why would I say something as dumb as that?"

Dean, for once, was lost for words, returning Sam's look with another just as blank. "But – " he began, before giving up and deciding to change tack. "The door. What about the door? He'd barricaded himself in here with you – I couldn't get the door open."

Sam glanced over at the door. "Seemed okay when he left," he observed. "And besides, it doesn't have a lock – "

"Didn't say it was locked," Dean pointed out. "Said he'd barricaded it."

"Why would he do that?" Sam let go of Dean altogether then, pulling away to better look him in the eye.

"To stop me getting in," Dean replied, not failing to notice that it was Ian, once again, who seemed to have managed to drive a wedge between the boys. Even when he wasn't around.

Pretty much like Dad, in fact.

Sam seemed to be considering that. Dean knew how badly Sam wanted a normal life – a normal family. He could see the disappointment fairly flooding his eyes at the idea that "Uncle" Ian might not be who he claimed to be.

The younger boy sighed deeply, stifling a yawn as he returned his head to rest on Dean's shoulder.

Dean inwardly mimicked Sam's sigh, putting a protective arm around the younger boy. You need to go to sleep, kiddo," he told him. "Things'll look better in the morning."

"Dean," Sam said in that mock forty-year-old authoritarian tone he saved for those occasions, becoming more frequent of late, when he though Dean was babying him. "When have things _ever_ looked better in the morning?"

Dean shrugged, recognising the truth in Sam's observation. "Okay," he conceded. "So Dad's missing and we're stuck in a house with a guy who may or may not be our Uncle and who may or may not be a demon, or possessed, or just plain nuts, and who may or may not have caused you to have a nightmare where I died. Sound about right?" he inclined his head to look down at his brother.

Sammy snorted. "Doesn't sound so bad when you put it like that."

Dean shook his head, grinning. "Uh-huh," he said. "Nothing we can't handle."

The boys let the ironic humour of their decidedly humourless situation wash over them for a second.

Then Dean's expression became serious. "We've got to be careful," he said simply.

Sam frowned. "Of Uncle Ian?"

"Of everything," Dean clarified. "Until we know what's going on. Or until Dad comes to get us."

Sam's eyes locked with his big brother's, the first to ask the question Dean had been avoiding asking all day. "You really think he will?"

Dean didn't look away, but neither did he answer.

"Dean?" Sam persisted. "What if Dad doesn't come back?"

Dean pulled Sam into a hug, resting his chin on top of the younger boy's head. "I don't know, Sammy," he replied honestly. "But we'll think of something."

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So Kiddie Dean is now turning into my own idealised Big Brother. Which is odd considering my feelings towards Grown-up Dean could in no way be described as fraternal...

Reviews welcome! Thanks for reading!


	6. Chapter 5

**A/N:** Thanks to everyone who's taken the time to read and even more thanks to everyone who's taken the time to review!

**Apologies:** Sorry this has taken a few days to post - whose idea is this 'going to work' malarky anyway?

**More apologies:** This was typed very quickly with the minimum amount of proof reading, so sorry if there are any ridiculous typos. And 'tyre' is British for - um - 'tire'. Just in case anyone gets confused by my spelling...!

_**Chapter Five**_

Oatmeal.

Dean had never liked oatmeal. Even when Mom used to make it, he'd pull a face and refuse to touch the stuff until she stirred a big splatter of peanut butter into it.

"You're a disgusting little monster, Dean Winchester," she'd tell him, trying to lick the spoon without him seeing.

But he always saw, and then he knew she was only kidding.

Ian was reading a newspaper while he shovelled oatmeal into his mouth. Not the small newspaper with the funnies; no, this was one of the extra-big sized 'serious' newspapers that was impossible to read without folding fourteen times.

Ian seemed to like the oatmeal.

But then, so did Sam.

However, this morning, neither of the boys seemed to have much of an appetite.

Three times last night Sam had woken trembling from a nightmare. Not a white-eyed man, Dean burning up nightmare. Just the regular kind.

Dean wasn't sure whether that was a relief or not.

"What if Daddy just ditched us, Dean?" Sam had asked. "What if he ditched us? I dreamed he never came back, he just left us and never came back!"

Dean, of course, had merely stroked Sam's hair and told him to go back to sleep – it was just a nightmare. Dad would _never_ ditch them. Never. He'd be back. He'd be back for them.

But when Dean woke up with tears on his cheeks and the words, "Dad, is that you?" on his lips, it was Sam's wide, dark eyes he glimpsed in the early morning light, not his father's. And then it had been Sam's turn to gently tell his big brother that he'd just been having a nightmare. That Dad would be back for them. That everything would be alright.

Dean didn't mention the dark place or the man with the white eyes.

"Dean, you're staring at me again," Ian observed between mouthfuls of oatmeal, eyes never leaving the newspaper.

Dean averted his gaze to his own untouched breakfast. "Sorry," he mumbled, fingers clutching the sides of his chair.

Ian did look up then, the tone of Dean's apology attracting his attention. "Oh, for goodness sake!" he let out an exasperated sigh. "For the last time, Dean, I'm _not_ a monster!"

Dean dared to spare him an uncertain glance, knowing Sammy was watching his every move.

"Whatever your Dad's been filling your heads with," Ian continued through another mouthful of oatmeal. "It's gonna cost a small fortune in therapy to get back out again!"

When Dean didn't rise to the bait, Ian merely shrugged and indicated the boys' untouched food.

"You boys should really try to eat something."

"We don't like oatmeal," Sammy piped up, Dean meeting his gaze questioningly across the table. _Yes you do_, his eyes said.

"You don't?" Ian appeared genuinely surprised, as if such a thing were unthinkable.

Sam shook his head.

Ian's gaze softened as he considered the little boy. "So what _do_ you like?" he asked, smiling indulgently.

"Froot Loops," Sam answered instantly. "Coco Pops. Pop Tarts. M&M's…"

It took Dean a second to realise Sammy was reeling off a list of _Dean_'s favourite breakfast fare.

"You can't eat M&M's for breakfast!" Ian laughed, the playful tone of his voice almost causing Dean to forget how he'd looked standing over his baby brother with those scary white eyes the night before.

"Can too!" Sam grinned, apparently having forgotten as well. "Right Dean? Remember those pancakes you made? They were awesome!"

A ghost of a smile flickered across Dean's face. "The muffins were better," he managed, grinning as he shared the memory with his kid brother.

Sam sniggered.

"You guys put M&M's in pancakes?" Ian seemed to have just caught up with the conversation.

"Uh-huh," Sam confirmed, nodding. "And muffins."

"M&M's go with everything," Dean informed his Uncle, Sammy's laughter for a brief moment easing the tight clenching of his chest and the knot of fear in his stomach.

"I don't think Daddy liked the spaghetti though," Sam added, grinning.

"Yeah," Dean reconsidered his previous statement. "That _was_ pretty disgusting…"

"Alright," Ian put in then. "We'll go shopping later. Get some kid food."

Sam seemed to brighten still further at that – Dad very rarely took them shopping for much besides ammo and weapons – turning sparkling, hopeful eyes up to his Uncle. "You don't have to go to work?" Despite their off-kilter upbringing, Sam knew that most grown-ups went to work on a Monday morning.

Ian smiled. "The office are letting me work from home this week," he explained. "Just until we know – you know – " he glanced at Dean. " – How long you're staying."

Dean bit his lip, while Sam burst out, "Cool!"

Obviously, Dean found himself thinking, his conversation with Sam of the night before, where he'd urged Sammy to be careful of Ian – just in case – had fallen on deaf ears, and Sam was back to believing the guy could do no wrong.

_You're just jealous_, Dean's annoying little voice goaded him. Problem was, it was probably true: Dean didn't like Ian playing Grown Up for Sammy. That was _his_ job.

"I just need a couple of hours to go through some work stuff," Ian was saying. "Shouldn't take me much longer…"

"What do you do?" Sammy interrupted, enamoured by this latest brief glimpse into life on Planet Normal.

Ian seemed somewhat taken aback. "Do?" he echoed.

"For a job," Sam clarified.

"Oh!" Ian smiled again. "I'm an attorney. A lawyer."

"Really?" Sam's eyes widened. "Like Matlock?"

Ian laughed at that. "Something like that," he agreed. "Mostly I do Family Law." At Sam's inquisitive frown, he clarified. "I protect kids in trouble, mostly."

"Like us?"

Dean really wished Sam hadn't said that.

Ian's smile turned wistful, almost sad. "Yeah," he confirmed. "Sometimes." His face had gone all serious, and he just sat looking at Sam for a second, before his gaze flitted almost unconsciously to a framed photograph which sat on a little table by the door, half obscured by a huge vase full of garishly-coloured silk flowers.

Dean hadn't noticed the photograph before, and probably wouldn't have given it a second glance if it hadn't been for the anguished expression that appeared on Ian's face when he looked over at it.

It was a picture of two young boys, the older one probably a year or so older than Dean, dark haired but pale-faced, and with eyes so blue Dean at first thought there must have been a fault on the camera. The younger boy was maybe Sam's age, with those same stunning blue eyes and a face framed by hair of a lighter brown. The older boy had an arm draped lazily around the younger's shoulder.

Dean guessed they were probably brothers, and it was as if Sam had read his mind when he inquisitively asked, "Who are they, Uncle Ian?", obviously also having picked up on the man's sudden shift in focus.

Ian returned his attention to Sam, a pained look in his eyes and a sigh on his lips. "A couple of kids who were in trouble," he replied evasively, eyes suddenly downcast, as if no longer able to meet Sam's gaze. Then he brightened again, looking up as if nothing had happened. "Hey, you guys wanna swim while I finish my work?"

The idea of the swimming pool had clearly been lurking in the back of Sam's head since yesterday, as he fairly jumped up from his seat at the offer. "Now?" he asked excitedly, eyes sparkling. "Can we go now?"

Ian pointed at Sam's untouched oatmeal with his spoon, a mock-serious expression on his face. "Only if you eat your breakfast," he said.

Sam's face fell a little, eyes darting to his brother, as if asking permission.

Dean sighed and picked up his spoon.

If the worst thing he had to do today was eat oatmeal, then maybe things were looking up…

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dean dangled his feet over the edge of the pool, cool water lapping over them as Sammy's enthusiastic splashing caused little waves to break over his brother's toes.

Sam had always been a good swimmer, had taken to it like the proverbial duck to water. Which was a good thing, considering swimming was very high on the Winchester Training Manual Checklist.

Dean was pretty good too, but he didn't really enjoy it in the same way that Sammy did – not with that childlike joy of experiencing semi-weightlessness, of suddenly becoming unfettered by gravity, of being able to move so fast under your own power.

Maybe it was the freedom of it that thrilled Sam so much. Made him feel independent and in control of something, when his life was so obviously out of his control and inextricably linked with those of two other people.

For Dean, however, swimming was a means to an end, a necessary skill he might one day have to rely on for his survival.

While Sammy was learning the back stroke, Dean was learning how to hold his breath under water for three minutes. He'd never managed it yet, but it was only a matter of time. And it sure seemed an important skill as far as Dad was concerned.

"Dean!" Sam called suddenly, treading water in the middle of the pool as he looked over at his brother. "You coming in?"

Dean glanced up at the house, where he had been only too aware of Ian standing watching them from his office window for the last six – make that seven – minutes. "Maybe later, Sammy," he replied, looking back at Sam.

His brother seemed bitterly disappointed, throwing Dean his trademark puppy-dog-pleading look that he knew always made a complete sucker out of his big brother. It wasn't that Sam was manipulative: he just knew exactly which of Dean's buttons to push to get what he wanted.

But not this time.

Ian had retreated from the window, apparently satisfied that his nephews weren't about to drown themselves. Or, in Dean's case, scale the side of a building, jump the fence, hotwire the car or just pick up his little brother and run like hell. After last night's little escapade, Ian had no doubt the kid was capable of it.

Dean continued to gaze at the window for a few seconds longer, ensuring Ian wasn't coming back before seizing his opportunity. "There's something I wanna check out," he said cautiously.

Sam frowned. "Can I come?"

Dean smiled reassuringly, finally looking away from the window. "Need you here running interference for me, kiddo," he explained, withdrawing his feet from the pool and standing, the tiles cool against his toes. "In case Ian looks out to see where we are."

"But he'll only see me," Sam pointed out, ever the logician.

"Yeah," Dean agreed. "But he'll just presume I'm here with you, right? Under the water or something."

Sam thought about that for a second. "Okay," he agreed finally, unable to fault Dean's line of thinking. "But you're not going to do something stupid are you?"

Dean tossed the kid a reassuring grin. "Ever known me to do something stupid?" he asked, turning away from his brother.

Towards the shed at the bottom of the garden.

"Yes," Sam replied flatly.

"Yeah, well," Dean muttered. "Who knew you weren't supposed to dry your clothes in the microwave?"

"Dean," Sam's voice was deadly serious. So serious, in fact, that Dean stopped in his tracks, turning back to face him. "Don't upset Uncle Ian," the younger boy said, a trace of anxiety in his voice. "Without him…" he groped for the right words. "If Dad doesn't come back…" he let his sentence drift away from him, and for a second Dean just stared at him, before finally nodding.

"I know," he said quietly, his first tacit admission that Dad might _not_ just be off on some extended hunting trip.

Sam nodded. "Okay," he said. "Consider me interference." He took a breath and disappeared under the water, leaving Dean to silently gaze at the ripples where his baby brother had just been.

"_What if you don't come back?"_

Shaking himself mentally, Dean tore his gaze away from the pool, refocusing on the task at hand. Sparing a quick glance back up at the office window to ensure Ian was still not watching, he turned on his heel and quickly padded off towards the shed. If Uncle Ian didn't want them in there, then Dean _had_ to get in and find out why.

Bare feet and legs catching on the rough shrubbery stretching down the garden towards the rickety-looking wooden hut, Dean swore silently to himself, remembering why he didn't do shorts.

"Stupid nature," he growled, putting his foot down awkwardly on a broken stone and yelping like a startled puppy. "Goddammit!" he swore, hoping this little nature hike was worth the effort.

Jumping over the last clump of prickly green stuff, Dean sidled towards Ian's garage, a fairly big wooden construction that was pretty much the size of the Winchesters' apartment back in Missouri. The walls were made out of rough-hewn two by four nailed somewhat clumsily together in a less-than-expert fashion. If Dean had to guess, he would say Ian had probably built the thing himself. And not very well.

Creeping around the outside of the building, Dean realised he was able to glimpse workbenches and tools through the gaps in the wooden slats, and was pretty sure he could make out the outline of an old Dodge pick-up truck rusting away next to what looked like a half-complete metal weather vane.

Coming around to the front of the shed, Dean examined the ridiculously excessive padlock and rusty chain slung through the handles of the double doors and wondered idly how long it would take him to pick a padlock that size.

Right now, too long, he decided, creeping around to the other side of the building, one hand lazily tracing the rough wood with outstretched fingers while he wondered what could possibly merit a lock that size on a shack like this that looked like it would probably fall over if it rained too hard.

Something caught Dean's eye as his view through the wooden slats made an old-style animation out of the contents of the shed.

He stopped, putting his eye against one of the gaps and peering in to where he could now spy the front of the pick-up truck. For the first time he noticed what looked like another vehicle parked next to it, partially concealed by a tarpaulin, his previous angle on the truck having blocked it from view until now.

Although the car was almost completely hidden beneath the tarpaulin, Dean couldn't shake the feeling that there was something oddly familiar about its outline, its shape. The length of it. The width of it.

Dean scooted a little further round the building, trying to get a better angle on the car. Viewed side-on, he could see that it was easily as long as the truck, if not longer.

_That's some big clunky car_, he thought to himself, inclining his head slightly

to get a better look at the rear wing, where the tarpaulin had bunched up slightly to reveal a battered-looking tyre with less tread than was probably legal, and a tantalising flash of gleaming black metal.

Black metal.

Dean pressed his face right up against the gap between the wooden slats, his breath suddenly caught in his throat as an intense feeling of cold gripped his stomach and the pounding of the blood in his head made him dizzy.

The tyre.

Dean had taken a chunk out of the tyre a couple of weeks ago, when Dad had foolishly let him try driving down the hill to their apartment, mounting the kerb when he'd suddenly realised he couldn't reach to put the brake all the way down and had decided that the only way to stop his forward momentum was to tug on the parking brake.

Squinting through the semi-darkness, heart in his mouth as he silently prayed that he was just being a paranoid nut-job, Dean scanned the tyre for the missing chunk of rubber which he just knew was going to be there.

And there it was.

The chunk he'd taken out of the Impala's back tyre only two weeks ago.

Dean wasn't sure whether to scream blue murder or run off to find the nearest Police Station.

In the end, he did neither, realising that the best thing he could do just then was remember to breathe.

Sucking in a lungful of badly-needed oxygen, Dean pulled away from the shed for a few seconds, desperately trying to convince himself that he was just seeing things, while his head buzzed and tried to make him fall over.

Returning his eye to the peephole, he stared once more at what was unmistakeably the silhouette of a Chevrolet Impala.

His Dad's Chevrolet Impala.

Crap. Crap. And crap.

There was no reason for Dad's car to be stashed in Uncle Ian's shed. No reason at all. Why was it even here? How had it got here? Why would Dad have left it here? Why why why why…

_Get a grip, Dean_, the little voice admonished him, as he just stood rooted to the spot, staring numbly at the telltale sliver of black metal and the chunk missing from the tyre.

_Okay, don't panic. This could mean anything._ Maybe Dad left the car here with Uncle Ian for safekeeping. _Yeah, when he'd asked him to come get us._ No wait a second. Uncle Ian had said Dad had called him, not that he'd visited.

_Okay, so maybe… maybe…_

_Maybe something's happened to him. Maybe that's why Ian has the car. Maybe he just hasn't figured out how to break it to us yet. Maybe Dad's…_

Not coming back.

Maybe, maybe, maybe…

Dean took a long, calming breath, closed his eyes, and tried to shut out the screaming in his head.

Maybe it was something else.

Maybe they weren't after Dad.

Maybe…

"Sam," Dean muttered the name, eyes snapping wide open as the thought exploded in his brain. _Need to get to Sam._

Setting off at a sprint, Dean never felt the bushes clawing at his legs or the stones biting at his feet as he hurtled back towards the swimming pool.

"Sam!" he cried, fairly leaping over the last of the shrubbery and skidding to a halt by the side of the pool. "Sammy?"

Scanning the water with fearful eyes, Dean's state of barely-contained panic shunted into overdrive as it slowly dawned on him that his brother was nowhere to be seen and his clothes had gone from the side of the pool where he'd left them.

"Sam!" he yelled again, eyes darting in a sweeping search pattern, away from the pool, out across the garden and up towards the house.

Nothing.

Nothing moved.

Almost fearfully, his gaze slid up towards the office window.

Where Ian was standing, staring back at him.

It was then that Dean felt what, had he not been completely alone by the side of the pool, he would have sworn was a rough hand shove him between his shoulder blades with so much force that the blow would have sent a grown man flying.

As it was, Dean felt himself falling, and with nothing to grab hold of, the next thing he knew he was hitting the water, going under so hard he actually felt the bottom of the pool graze his hip as he twisted in an effort to figure out which way was up as quickly as he could, the force of the blow to has back having knocked most of the air out of his body before he even hit the water.

Following a glimmer of sunlight spearing down through the water, Dean clawed his way back up to the surface of the pool, gasping in a lungful of air as he broke the surface, eyes darting about himself in an effort to identify who the hell had shoved him in.

But there was no-one there. Not a soul.

"Sammy!" he managed to shout through a mouthful of chlorinated water, his thoughts switching back instantly to his brother as soon as he surmised that he himself wasn't in any immediate danger.

After all, there was nobody else here. How could he be in danger?

"Sam?" Where the hell had the kid got to?

Of course, as Dean's Dad had discovered many times in his long and twisted career, the belief that you were safe and the reality of safety were two completely different things.

So when Dean felt something grab his ankle and yank him back beneath the water, he really shouldn't have been surprised.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Okay, so yeah another cliffie, but this time a DIP cliffie instead of a SIP cliffie... (Dean In Peril / Sam in Peril. I guess the ending of Devil's Trap is a WIP cliffie - Winchesters in Peril...). Okay rambling again. Let me know your thoughts. And be gentle with me...


	7. Chapter 6

**A/N:** So no work for me today, so I got to play in Supernatural Land all afternoon. Here's another chapter to put you out of your DIP cliffie misery.

Oh, and thanks for the reviews! You never know, I might hit that magic 100 after all!

_**Chapter Six**_

It was funny.

Dean had often heard that dying men saw their life flash before their eyes in those last few precious seconds before oblivion.

If that was what Dean was supposed to be experiencing, then some angel somewhere had really screwed up, as he was pretty sure he was watching the wrong tape.

Because all he saw was water.

And Sammy. And Sammy wasn't even there…

Sure, he thrashed his arms about a bit, kicked hard with his legs. Only succeeded in adding a few bubbles to the scene laid out in front of him. Didn't stop the thing clinging on to his ankle like an invisible anchor, or the pressure on his head and shoulders, like a giant hand pushing him down, deeper into the water.

And it certainly didn't stop the tick-tick-tick in his brain, almost unconsciously counting off the seconds until he finally ran out of air.

Fifty-one, fifty-two, fifty-three…

Dean's personal best was two minutes twelve seconds. Sure, he was working up to being able to hold his breath for three minutes, but he was still a damn long ways off managing it.

Sixty-six, sixty-seven…

There was something oddly soothing in the numbers…

Seventy- nine, eighty-two…

No wait, that wasn't right.

Dean's head was buzzing, lungs burning, chest hurting as if it was being squeezed in the jaws of one of those giant car crushing machines.

Sam had had nightmares for weeks after seeing one of those things on a re-run of _Starsky and Hutch_…

He kicked with his ankle, kicked really hard, as hard as he could. But still the thing wouldn't let go.

Ninety-nine, one hundred…

_Come out come out wherever you are!_

Sammy had always been better at hide-and-go-seek than Dean. Could squeeze himself into the smallest spaces and just stay quiet for hours. It was one of the few games Dad didn't mind them playing…would someday help them on the Hunt he said…

One twenty, one twenty-one…

Sammy was hiding. That was it. That was why he'd not been able to see him near the pool. He wasn't hurt. He wasn't taken. He was hiding. From this thing. This thing that had pushed Dean into the water and was slowly drowning him. He was…

One thirty-two, one thirty-three – hey a new record!

…Hiding from it so it wouldn't get him too. Now that Dean had completely failed to protect him and all, Sam would have to start looking out for himself, keep the white-eyed monsters away, hide from them.

_Hide, Sammy! You've got to hide, 'cause I can't look out for you any more…_

One forty, one forty-one…

_I'm sorry._

_I'm so sorry._

_Don't be mad._

_Sammy, don't be mad. And don't cry. You just need to hide, that's all. Just hide and they won't be able to get you and everything will be alright and I'll be alright then 'cause I'll know you'll be alright and then I can die and it'll be alright and…_

One sixty-four, one sixty-five…

_Did I hit three minutes yet?_

One seventy, one seventy-one…

_Dad, why aren't you here to save me? Why aren't you swooping in to save me at the last minute, just like Superman always does?_

_Don't be mad, Dad. I think I lost Sammy. Don't be mad, he's hiding so it's okay…_

One seventy-nine, one…

_No, he's just hiding…_

'_Cause I can't see him. I can't see…_

"Dean? Please don't be dead! You're not dead, right? You're just pretending! Right? 'Cause if you're dead who's gonna take care of me? You wanna take care of me, right? 'Cause that's okay. Really. I didn't mean what I said yesterday. I really _can't_ manage without you! I don't even know why I said that! God, that was such a stupid thing to say and I didn't even mean it. So you need to wake up now. Dean. Dean? Dean!"

"Sammy, you're supposed to be hiding."

The bright blue sky hurt Dean's eyes, so he was more than grateful when his kid brother's shaggy head suddenly blocked it from his view.

"Sammy, why are your clothes all wet?"

Sam's t-shirt felt cold against Dean's chin as the little boy threatened to smother him in a bone-crushing hug.

Hug.

Ah man! Why was Sammy hugging him? God, he was such a _girl_ sometimes…

"I thought you were dead!" Sam burst out, hugging his big brother even harder to his chest, arms wrapped tightly around the older boy's neck.

"Sammy – " Dean gasped, trying to extricate himself. " – Can't – breathe – "

Sam let go of him instantly, sitting bolt upright as if someone had tugged a little too hard on his strings. His eyes were wide, dark and tell-tale red from crying, cheeks pinched and salty. He reached out one shaking hand to push Dean's dripping hair out of his eyes, before settling back on his haunches.

"You'll catch pneumonia if you don't get some dry clothes on, Sammy," Dean found himself saying, somehow managing to get himself into a sitting position. He squinted appraisingly at his brother for a couple of seconds, before adding, "Why are you all wet?"

Sam wrapped his arms about himself, shivering despite the warm morning sunshine that seemed to fill the air all around without warming either of them.

"I – I jumped in the pool," Sam explained, eyes locking with his brother's. "When I saw… I mean, just – just after you went – you know – down there – " he indicated in the direction of the shed with his chin. "Uncle Ian called us back to the house. Said we needed to get dressed as he was ready to take us shopping. I was scared because I didn't know how I was going to explain where you were, but I started walking towards the house anyway, but when I got half way there, I got a bad feeling, and then I heard you yelling for me, so I came back to the pool, and you were – you were – on the bottom. And you weren't moving. And I thought maybe – maybe you were still trying to beat that stupid three minute thing that Daddy told you you should be able to do by now. I – I know he got mad last time, when – when you couldn't... And I didn't know whether you… So I jumped in…" Sam trailed off, finally stopping for air.

"Well I did three minutes today, Sammy," Dean wasn't smiling when he reached out and wiped the tears off Sam's cheek. "But only 'cause something was holding me down there."

Sam's eyes widened still further. "Something tried to _drown_ you?"

Dean shrugged. "I guess," he said. "It pushed me in, then held me under. So. Yeah. I guess something tried to drown me."

Sam frowned. "It was weird though," he said, scrunching up his eyebrows. "As soon as I jumped in to try and pull you out, you started to float up towards me. Like – like – "

Dean raised a surprised eyebrow. "Like it let go of me?" he hardly dared ask.

Sam nodded slowly. "So that I could pull you out."

"Huh," Dean leaned backwards slightly, squinting at Sam as if to get a better look at him. "You pulled me out?"

Sam nodded again. "You're not _that_ much bigger than me," he observed, trying to smile to disguise his barely-receding terror. "You weren't breathing," he added. "I thought you were dead."

Dean eyed him suspiciously. "If you did that kiss of life thing on me, you're a dead man," he promised.

Sam finally laughed at that. "No, just the chest compressions Daddy taught us."

Dean grinned at him. "Good job one of us was paying attention." He put his hand on the back of Sammy's neck, pulling him back into an uncharacteristic hug. "Thanks, squirt," he muttered into his hair. "You saved my bacon."

Sam returned the hug, more relieved than he could ever articulate to feel his brother's warmth against his own shivering body. "You owe me an hour up front in the Impala," he said.

The Impala.

Dean pulled away suddenly, the fearful look he'd worn for the last few days back in his eyes. "Dude," he said urgently. "I gotta show you something…"

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Uncle Ian said we're not allowed down here," Sam objected, nevertheless following his brother through prickly shrubbery towards the old wooden shed.

They were both still dripping wet from the little mishap with the swimming pool, but Dean had insisted dry clothes could wait – this was far more important.

Sam had at least stopped shivering now, the shock of finding his big brother half-drowned starting to recede slowly into the dark place in his mind reserved for his worst nightmares.

And the latest shock had yet to sink in.

"He said we're not allowed _in_ the garage," Dean pointed out, picking his way carefully over the treacherous garden. "He didn't say we weren't allowed _near_ it."

Sam didn't really see the difference, and although Dean hadn't shared with him the fact that Uncle Ian had been watching when he was pushed into the pool, it didn't take a genius to see that his older brother really didn't trust the guy. Dean had good instincts about people, and if he was right to mistrust Ian, then Sam really didn't want to antagonise him any further by flouting one of the few rules he had insisted upon.

Dean's life might depend on it.

Trying not to dwell too much on that thought, Sam piped up, "So why would Daddy's car be in Uncle Ian's garage?"

He saw Dean's shoulders shrug. "I don't know," the older boy admitted. "But I can't think of any _good_ reason. Only bad ones."

Sam didn't reply for a second, concentrating on tracing Dean's footsteps. "Dean?" he said at last.

"Yeah?" Dean replied, jumping over the last bush and standing staring apprehensively up at the structure before him.

Sam appeared by his side, following his gaze upwards. "You don't think – " he began, obviously looking for a way to phrase his question. "You don't think Daddy's – "

Dean looked down at him, a look more scared than angry in his eyes. "Don't, Sam – "

" – Dead, do you?"

Sam's lip quivered ever-so-slightly, and Dean had to resist the urge to sweep him up into another goddamn-chick-flick hug. _Now who's being the girl?_ Instead, he just slung an arm over his baby brother's shoulder as nonchalantly as he could. "The day something gets the better of John Winchester," he said confidently. "Is the day Hell freezes over."

Sam smiled weakly at that, reluctantly following as Dean took a step towards the shed doors. Looking back, he didn't fail to notice Sammy's lack of enthusiasm, reading the uncertainty in his dark eyes. Dean got it: Sammy wasn't worried about Ian's telling them not to go into the shed. He was worried about what they'd find when they got there.

"It's okay, kiddo," Dean said, reassuringly. "We're just gonna look – "

"At what?"

Both boys jumped back about a foot as the shed's big wooden doors were suddenly pushed open and Uncle Ian appeared, ensuring the doors opened only enough to allow him to exit before hurriedly closing them behind him.

Dean just stared up at him open-mouthed, glancing from the garage to the direction of the house and finally back to his Uncle. "But – " he stuttered. "You were – you were at the house – " he faltered, brows drawn together in a confused frown. "You were at the window…"

Ian shook his head. "I've been here for the last half hour," he insisted, frowning right back. He looked down at Sam, who seemed torn between staring up at his brother and trying to peek through the little gap between the shed doors. "I called to you, right Sam?" Ian was saying. "Told you both to get dressed and go up to the house."

Dean didn't miss the challenging look in Ian's eyes just then, as his gaze shifted from the younger boy to the older. He knew Dean hadn't been with Sam at the swimming pool…

"Uh – " Sam stumbled, feeling his brother's fingers digging into his shoulder.

"Sam?" Ian prodded. "You heard me call you, right?"

Sam bit his lip. "Uh – yeah, I guess," he agreed slowly.

"And my voice didn't come from the direction of the house, did it?"

Sam looked up at Dean again, suddenly unsure of _what_ he'd heard. When he'd told Dean Ian had called them, he had been positive his voice had carried from the house. But now he was just as sure his voice had come from the opposite direction. From the shed.

"I – " _Dean, don't be mad,_ his eyes said as they met his big brother's. "I'm not sure," he managed weakly, looking down at his squelching sneakers.

"What do you mean, 'you're not sure'?" Dean demanded, trying not to sound too angry with the kid, but failing pretty spectacularly.

"I'm sorry," Sam mumbled, not even daring to look up until he felt Dean squeeze his shoulder again, pulling him closer to him as he did so.

Sam recognised that as Dean-speak for _I'm not mad at _you

Something bad was going on, that much Sam was sure of. Dean had taken up his much-practised Sammy Defence Stance, and although Sam was always the first to demand Dean stop treating him like a baby, right now he was more than happy that his big brother was standing between him and Uncle Ian.

There was something in the guy's eyes. Something Sam didn't like.

"I _saw_ you at the house," Dean was saying, a determination in his voice that Sam hadn't heard there for a couple of days. "And you sure as hell weren't in there – " he indicated the shed with a nod of his head, " – when…" he trailed off, realising his error too late.

There was no mistaking the little smile playing over Ian's lips. "When what?" he asked, taking a step towards the boys.

Sam made to back away, but Dean held him firm at his side, chin raised, jaw set.

Dean had never reminded Sam so much of their Dad as he did at that moment.

"When _what_, Dean?" Ian repeated, taking another step forward as his eyes bored into those of the older boy.

If there was one thing Sam particularly admired about his older brother, it was the way he always stood up to bullies. Always stood his ground. Never gave an inch. Even if they were bigger than him.

And Uncle Ian was _a lot_ bigger than him.

Dean gritted his teeth, eyes flashing. "Why's my Dad's car in your shed?" he demanded, voice strong and defiant.

Sam sucked in a sharp breath, Ian not replying right away, just taking another step towards them.

Sam really wanted to go now, but Dean held him fast, even as their Uncle towered over them.

He bent down towards them then, flinty eyes level with Dean's, and in one quick movement suddenly darted out a hand and grabbed the boy's shoulder.

Although Sam flinched for him, Dean didn't even blink.

And then Ian's face changed totally, thinly compressed mouth widening into a forced smile. "What?" he burst out, as if Dean had just said the funniest thing in the world. "Your Dad's car?"

Dean's face remained stony. "In your shed," he insisted, gaze never leaving Ian's. "I _saw_ it," he added calmly, sticking out his neck so that his face was mere inches from his Uncle's.

Ian paused for a beat, before breaking into a peel of oddly inappropriate laughter, straightening up and glancing back over his shoulder towards the shed.

_Hah! You looked away first, loser!_ Sam thought, not for the first time looking up at his brother with a mixture of awe and pride shining in his eyes.

"Dean, I do _not_ have your Dad's car!" Ian insisted, raking his hands through his hair in exasperation. Then, yanking open the shed doors, he spat, "Here, take a look inside if you don't believe me!"

When Dean didn't move, Ian caught hold of his upper arm, fairly dragging him into the doorway, Sam following close on their heels, stopping when they did and peeking out from behind his brother cautiously.

"No way!" Dean burst out, eyes scanning the suddenly less-than-sinister garage now opened up before him. "It was _right here_!"

Sam followed Dean's uncomprehending gaze to where a rusty old Ford was partially concealed beneath an oily tarpaulin next to an ancient Dodge pick-up truck.

Dean turned accusing eyes up to his Uncle, who continued to maintain his unnecessarily tight grip on the boy's arm. "What did you do with it?" he demanded. "Where did you move it to?"

Ian's face was a total mask of innocence. "Honestly Dean," he said, voice all soft and patronising. "If you're going to make up these ridiculous stories, you could at least be consistent. Either I was up at the house or I was down here trying to hide your Dad's car. Can't have been in two places at once."

Dean frowned angrily at him, and Sam could tell he was trying to fathom some kind of explanation in his head.

"And where could I have moved it to?" Ian continued. "If I actually had it, that is. In the time you say you saw it here and the time – "

"You were trying to drown me," Dean supplied, trying to wriggle free of Ian's increasingly painful grip with no success whatsoever.

Sam held his breath, expecting Uncle Ian to get mad then. After all, it wasn't every day your nephew accused you of attempted murder.

But he didn't. He just laughed. And that angered Dean more than if he'd slapped him.

"So now I've gone from a car thief to an attempted child-killer?" he asked, shaking his head in exaggerated exasperation, more, Sam felt, for the younger Winchester's benefit than anyone else's. "Hear that, Sam? Your brother thinks I tried to drown him!"

"Did you?" Sam asked instantly, causing both Dean and Ian to stare at him like he'd just started speaking in tongues.

Ian looked completely taken aback, and then extremely serious, before finally breaking into more derisive laughter. "You boys," he said, shaking his head while his arm tightened so hard on Dean's arm he barely suppressed a yelp. "I don't know _what_ your Dad's been filling your heads with! Honestly! Now, run along to the house and get into some dry clothes. You'll both catch your deaths."

Dean didn't miss the irony of _that_ statement.

"And we were supposed to be going shopping, remember?" Ian added.

"Yeah, and you were supposed to be working in your office this morning, not your shed," Dean growled, as Ian finally released his hold on him. "Remember?"

Ian made no reply, his smile never even slipping, and Sam had to grab hold of Dean's wrist and fairly drag him back out of the shed before their Uncle changed his mind.

"Dean, come _on_!" he said urgently, pulling his brother back out into the sunshine, where the other boy stopped, suddenly, just as the shed doors closed behind them.

Sam looked up at him uncertainly. His brother's jaw was still tightly clenched, and Sam could feel him shaking, although he wasn't sure if it was from fear or anger. Or both.

"Dean?"

Dean rubbed furiously at his arm, before suddenly turning to Sam, a look of complete desperation in his eyes. "Sammy," he said slowly, putting a hand on his kid brother's shoulder and bending down so that they were at eye level. "You believe me, right? You believe I saw Dad's car?"

Sam turned wide eyes up to his brother's, hand finding Dean's as it clutched at his shoulder. "I believe you," he said, never more sure of anything in his life.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

No cliffie this time - Okay, maybe a CHIP cliffie (CHevy Impala in Peril). Devil's Trap premiered in the UK last night - biggest CHIP cliffie in the world EVER! Oh my god, Mr Kripke, please save the car! (Oh, and the contents. Obviously.)


	8. Chapter 7

**A/N: **Hooray! It's only taken me four days to get the document uploader thingy to work! Sorry for the severe delay (although not of my making...!) Luckily I didn't get derailed on a cliffie... Thanks to everyone who's reviewed - I've nearly made the 100! I'm almost as happy as when SN got renewed for a second season...!

**Apologies:** It's been pointed out to me that I've now tried to drown Dean in my last two chapter fics. I shall endeavour to think of a more creative way of trying to kill him in my next one...

**Apologies 2:** This goes a bit Corny Evil Dude somewhere in the middle. Hope the corn doesn't get too badly wedged in your teeth.

**Apologies 3:** Again, my American geography sucks big time and I had no idea where Pastor Jim was likely to have been living at this stage in the boys' lives, so I've gone for the place where he met his Maker (and Meg) in Salvation. I know Dean said it was a three hour drive to his house from Fitchburg in _Something Wicked_, so I'm just hoping that would kind of make sense... If anyone knows for sure, feel free to let me know!

**Disclaimer:** A little disclaimer renewal never hurts. Some day I will own the Universe and Sam and Dean will be mine... Until that day they're not. But it doesn't hurt do daydream. sigh

On with the show.

_**Chapter 7**_

Dean's head spun as he carefully inspected the reddening skin on his upper arm where Ian had grabbed him so forcefully. Throwing on a faded green t-shirt that had always seemed a couple of sizes too big for him no matter how big he got, he listened carefully for the sounds of Sam opening and closing drawers in the room next door, rooting around for dry clothes as if he owned any more than Dean did.

Despite the terror trying to bulldoze its way past his carefully constructed perimeter walls and right on into his brain, Dean couldn't help feeling a swell of pride warming his chest when he thought of the little guy jumping into the swimming pool and dragging his big brother to safety.

One less the little squirt owed him.

He could tell Sam was scared, not used to being the one who had to ride in on the white horse just in the nick of time. That was Dad's job. Or Dean's job. Not his. He wasn't used to having to protect his brother the way Dean was.

And Dean had never actually considered that Sam might have to some day.

Still, as concerned as Sam was for Dean's welfare, Dean was doubly concerned for Sam's. He didn't know what Uncle Ian was up to – and he was starting to have serious doubts about whether the guy actually _was_ their Uncle – but three things he knew for sure.

First, he hadn't imagined those white eyes as Ian had stood over Sam's nightmare-ravaged form.

Second, he hadn't imagined Ian watching from the window when Dean was pushed into the pool. And he sure as hell hadn't made any attempt to help him, even, Dean was pretty sure, going as far as to call Sammy away before it happened.

Third, Dean _definitely_ hadn't imagined Dad's Impala hidden away in Ian's shed, in one of only two places Ian had strictly forbidden Dean and Sam to enter. Which made Dean even more curious as to what might be going on in the basement.

But there was also a fourth thing Dean was sure of, and that was the best thing of all: Sam believed him. And that's all that mattered.

He sighed, running a hand through his damp hair.

Sometimes Sammy's wish to be a normal kid didn't sound like such a bad idea.

"Dean?" Sam pushed open the door tentatively, shuffling into the room having changed into dry clothes.

Dean turned to look at him. "Well if it isn't My Hero," he said, tossing the kid his best grin. "What happened to your cape, dude?" Although he didn't feel much in the mood for smiling, Dean hoped if he did it might reassure Sam that everything was alright.

Which of course it wasn't.

Sam returned a sheepish little smirk, as if not sure whether or not Dean was teasing him. "It's in the closet, ready for the next time you need to use it," he replied.

The door closed behind him with a bang then, startling them both. "Sorry," Sam muttered, shrugging.

Dean shrugged right back at him. "Not my paintwork," he observed.

Sam tried to smile again, but just couldn't. "Dean – " he began, face screwing up in worry as it finally began to register that he'd almost lost his big brother today.

Dean sighed again. Sometimes he wished he didn't have to be the older brother any more. Sometimes he wished someone else could do it for a while. Just for a little while.

But right now, he knew that he was all that stood between Sammy and total meltdown. Or Sammy and Ian. Whichever was worse.

"It's gonna be alright, Sammy," he said, trying to force some conviction into his tired voice. "Don't worry."

Sam nodded, fighting back the tears desperately trying to escape down his cheeks. "Promise?" he asked, brows drawn together over ever-darkening eyes.

God. How did Dean respond to that without lying? At this point, he and Sam were so far from 'alright' they may as well have been on another planet.

He beckoned Sam over to him, the kid shuffling across the room to stand in front of him, like some broken toy soldier just waiting for Dean to fix him.

Dean caught the younger boy beneath the chin, lifting his eyes up to meet his own, just like he remembered Dad doing so many times when Dean had been scared.

Sam gazed up at him like he was the Eighth Wonder of the World, and Dean almost crumpled under the pressure of a look so full of unshakeable trust and unquestioning faith.

He swallowed, trying to convince himself he deserved it.

"Sammy," he said, putting his hands on the kid's shoulders, again like he remembered Dad doing so many times. "I promise nothing bad's gonna happen to you as long as I'm around." That was the best he could do.

Sam's expression changed to one of resigned determination then, and he nodded slowly. "And _I_ promise," he said stoically. "That nothing bad's gonna happen to _you_ as long as _I'm_ around."

Dean couldn't help smiling at that. "Jeez, Sammy," he said. "You save a guy's life just once… Talk about a Superhero Complex!"

"As long as I get to be Superman," Sam insisted.

Dean frowned. "Who does that make me?"

Sam smirked. "I'll let you be Lois Lane if you're really really good," he said graciously.

Dean's smile turned into a laugh, and it felt like the first time he'd laughed in weeks. "Why, you little…" he never finished the sentence, the sound of a car engine outside drawing his attention.

The two of them just looked at each other for a second, before Dean edged over to the window, cautiously looking out over the driveway as Sam peered round him uncertainly.

A big silver Mercedes had turned on to the drive, pulling to a halt in front of the porch, the same porch Dean had climbed out onto the night before.

Dean heard the front door open, and Ian came into view, walking hesitantly towards the rear door of the vehicle, before casting a quick glance back up at the house, causing Dean to jerk back from the window for a second, before resuming his surveillance.

As Ian bent down towards the car, the darkened glass of the passenger window slid down smoothly, and Dean caught a brief glimpse of slicked back silver hair and dark glasses before the passenger settled back into the shadows.

He wasn't sure why, but Dean somehow knew it was important he hear this conversation, moving to open the window a little to better eavesdrop.

But the frame wouldn't budge.

"What the – ?" Dean glanced down, stomach lurching as he spotted the glint of fresh silver nails sticking out of the window frame on the other side of the glass. "Damn!" he burst out, his tone one of utter disgust. "The guy was busy while I was drowning…"

"What?" Sam stood on tiptoe to try and see what Dean was looking at.

Dean inclined his head towards the window frame. "Nailed my window shut," he explained bitterly.

Sam let the implications of that slowly sink in.

Dean glanced out of the window one more time. "Come on," he said, heading for the door. Sam followed close on his heels, and once again Dean marvelled at how short the distance seemed to Sam's room when you had solid floor beneath your feet.

Sam's window slid open easily, and Dean couldn't help thinking Ian might be underestimating the little squirt by not nailing _his_ window shut too.

Their Uncle's voice was drifting up from the driveway, a distinct edge to it as he seemed to be remonstrating with the passenger in the Mercedes.

"…But he's just a kid," he was saying. "Is it really necessary to…"

"You know what my Acolyte told me," another voice cut him off, a voice so cold it chilled Dean to his very core. He saw Sam shudder involuntarily, and figured the kid had obviously caught the same vibe.

Ian was nodding, almost reluctantly. "But why can't I keep both?" he asked, dejectedly.

There was a pause, where Dean could imagine the guy in the Mercedes sighing. "He almost ruined everything this morning," that cold voice said. "_You_ almost ruined everything this morning! You are weak. My Acolyte said this would come to pass. That the older boy would be difficult – "

Sam glanced up at Dean, who bit his lip rather harder than he'd meant.

"She is very rarely wrong about such things."

"But – "

"Had I not acted," the icy tone was laced with an unmistakeable edge of malice now. "He may have discovered the truth. If that happens, you will lose both of them. Do you understand?"

Ian nodded sheepishly, but didn't reply.

"He knows too much already – "

"Only guesses! He doesn't know anything – !"

"Yes he _does_!" the voice hissed. "Do not suppose the boy to be stupid. He must be dealt with. If you do not have the stomach for it…" the words trailed off, and Ian bowed his head.

"I do," he interrupted quietly. "To protect Sam."

Sam turned wide eyes on Dean, who was continuing to chew on his lip, pretty damned sure he knew who had to be 'dealt with'.

"Yes," the passenger was saying. "The younger. You will keep him. For me."

Ian nodded again. "But – what happened this morning…"

"Will be remedied. The younger will come to understand his mistake."

"Not if his brother has any say in the matter."

"He will say nothing else," the voice was positively glacial. Final. And Dean felt like icy fingers were clawing up his spine. "The younger will come to see. He will come to understand. But it must be done quickly. He will not be ours until the elder is disposed of."

Dean was pretty sure he had stopped breathing by this point, suddenly acutely aware of Sam pressing against his side as he slipped his fingers into his big brother's hand.

"And the other?" Ian sounded decidedly shaken now.

There was a long pause, then, "When the younger is ours, we will have no further use for him. You will dispose of him as well."

Ian hesitated before continuing, his voice even shakier than it had been before. "I'm not sure…" he gulped down the words. "I'm not sure I can. I mean. Why – why can't both of them – "

"Only the younger."

"But – "

"Remember the others?"

The words stopped Ian in his tracks, and Dean could see his shoulders slump, even from that distance.

"What did you call them?" the voice was mocking now, and when Ian didn't answer, the tone became more forceful, more cruel. "_What_ did you call them?"

Ian hung his head. "Daniel," he said, his voice barely audible. "Daniel and Jamie."

"We lost them _both_. Remember?"

"Yes."

"After _she_ chose them. My Acolyte. Hand-picked from an entire school!"

"Their mother – "

"Should not have been a problem. _Would _not have been a problem if you had not disobeyed my orders. I told you to dispose of her – "

"She was so young. She was all they had in the world."

"As _we_ should have been! They were perfect. The younger was perfect."

"I'm sorry."

"Yes. And with good reason."

Another pause, during which Dean was sure he could hear Sammy's heart thumping even over the sound of his own.

Then the frosty blast of that sleek voice again. "But your transgression may not be irredeemable," he said. Ian straightened slightly. "This one? The younger? He is even stronger than the last. He will be a fitting vessel."

Dean was pretty sure Sam whimpered at this point, and he squeezed the kid's hand a little tighter.

Ian was nodding. "And when you – when you're not – not using him?"

"He will be yours. Just as you've always wanted. Your greatest wish."

"Yes," Ian whispered. "My _only_ wish."

Dean had heard possessed people before. And he'd heard people held in the thrall of some nameless demon, bent to their master's every whim.

But they didn't sound like this. They didn't sound so…blissful.

"Yes," the icy voice again. "Yes. Remember that. Your only wish… It will be yours. But only if you obey me. It will never come to pass – he will never be ours – yours – as long as his brother remains to poison his mind against you."

"Yes."

"And he _will_ poison the boy against you."

"Yes."

"And then he will never be yours."

"Yes."

"You understand?"

"Yes."

"You understand what must be done?"

Ian straightened, looking taller than he had before. And with a voice as strong as iron, he said, "Yes. I understand what must be done."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sam didn't sit up front with Uncle Ian on the drive to the mall, preferring to sit in the back, as close to Dean as he could get.

The little squirt had barely left his big brother's side since their overheard conversation, and Dean wasn't sure whether it was out of fear of their Uncle or fear for Dean's safety.

Either way, Dean didn't care. If Ian was planning on hurting Sammy in any way, then damn straight Dean was going to have something to say about it, and he was pretty sure 'poisoning' Sam's mind against the guy was going to be the least of it.

When the man in the silver Mercedes had gone, Ian had come back inside, immediately calling to the boys that it was time to go.

Sam didn't seem quite as ecstatic about this little shopping adventure as he had at breakfast, but Dean could see potential in the trip: Escape potential. If Ian was planning on hurting Sammy, then Dean had to get him away. It was as simple as that. He had to get Sammy away to somewhere safe. He had to get to Pastor Jim's. He'd know what to do.

Dean was only too aware of Ian's incessant glances in the rear view mirror throughout the drive, and he couldn't help wondering if the guy could read his mind, see what he was planning. Or maybe he didn't need to be psychic; maybe he just needed to read Dean's body language; the way he held a protective arm around his little brother's shoulders; the way his eyes hadn't left the mirror all the while Ian had been in the car; the way he set his jaw like some kid soldier about to go into battle.

_Trouble with a capital 'T'._

That's how the Acolyte – Mrs Pritchard – had described Dean, Ian remembered. _Get rid of the older kid and you'll have no problem getting the younger one…_

Dean saw Ian squeeze his eyes shut as he started the engine, and couldn't help wondering what he was thinking about.

"You sure you don't want to sit up front, Sam?" Ian had asked then, reopening his eyes and forcing a smile. But Sam just shook his head and moved closer to Dean.

Of course, Dean hadn't been able to resist flashing a triumphant smirk at their alleged Uncle, whose own plastic smile never faltered.

Dean knew he could be wrong about Ian. And he knew he could be wrong that whatever Ian was up to meant danger for Sam, but Dad had always told him to follow his instincts and they'd very rarely steer him wrong.

Right now, his instincts had joined in a chorus with the little voice in his head that had reverted to screaming, _protect Sammy, protect Sammy, protect Sammy…_ over and over again, unrelentingly.

So that's what Dean was going to do.

If this guy really _was_ their Uncle, then he'd understand.

If he wasn't…

If he'd done something to their Dad…

If he was planning on doing something to Sammy…

Not. Gonna. Happen.

Dean would see to that.

The mall was so huge it hurt Dean's eyes. Dad wasn't one for shopping, and he and Sam had rarely had time to hang out in places like this after school, like normal kids.

He felt Sam tug at his sleeve, and his arm automatically wrapped itself reassuringly about the boy's shoulders.

"So," Uncle Ian said, the light, friendly tone his voice had taken at their initial meeting having returned full force. "Kid food." He glanced down at the two of them, as if assessing puppies in a pet store window. "And kid clothes."

"What's wrong with our clothes?" Dean demanded, as if criticising their appearance was a slur on their Dad. Which of course it was.

Ian smile apologetically. "They're just a little…" he paused, searching for the right word, "…old," he explained. "Wouldn't you like some new stuff?" When Dean didn't reply, he added, "Huh? Sam?"

Sam, always the one craving normality, could think of nothing better than being bought new clothes by a previously unknown uncle, rather than the hand-me-downs and stuff their Dad got at the Goodwill he usually had to make do with.

But right now, he was pretty sure Ian wasn't just after buying clothes.

And Sam wasn't going to be bought.

So he merely shrugged, a perfect imitation of his big brother.

This time, Dean didn't even try to hide the smirk. _That's my boy…_

Ian's smile remained rigidly plastered across his face. "Well okay," he said, trying to hide his disappointment but failing pretty miserably. "Look, I need to pick up some stuff, so I'm going to let you two have a look around the clothes store anyway – "

"You're leaving us?" Sam's eyes widened in alarm, and he sounded genuinely panicked, causing Dean another stab of that annoying thing called Jealousy.

What, Sam didn't think Dean could take care of him in a _mall_? Dean, who'd gotten Sam through covens, lairs, nests, you name it as long as it was dark and full of bad stuff – how hard could a _mall_ be?

Ian, however, frowned at Sam's suggestion. "No!" he burst out, sounding quite offended that Sam should think such a thing. "What kind of person would leave two little kids alone like that?"

Dean could feel Sam looking at him meaningfully, but stubbornly refused to return the look.

"I just thought you guys might want to look around," Ian ploughed on, waving casually in the direction of the cavernous clothes store on the corner. "You know. Without some old fogey like me cramping your style."

Dean would have found that funny if it so patently wasn't. So maybe Ian _couldn't_ read his mind after all…

"You can choose whatever you like. Really."

Dean suddenly realised that Ian was looking at him for some kind of assent.

Reluctantly, Dean nodded, although the distrust was obvious on his face.

Jeez, this was one mistrustful kid. Ian had dealt with street kids less suspicious of everything than Dean.

"Okay then," Ian kept his tone deliberately light. "I'll be right over here – " he motioned to the menswear section of the store which stood just across a walkway from the kids' section. " – If you need me. I need a new suit so bad… My old ones are practically walking by themselves! Come get me when you're done, huh, and we'll go pay for what you've chosen." And with that, he turned and headed off amongst the racking, towards a couple of mannequins modelling suits that Dean thought would probably break in half if you actually tried to move in them.

Dean watched Ian's retreating back for several seconds, Sam looking up at him as if waiting for instructions.

Finally, decision made, Dean looked down at his brother, steely determination in his eyes. "You know what, Sammy?" he said.

"What?" Sam asked, pretty sure he already knew the answer. Ian may not have been able to read Dean's mind, but Sam sure as hell could.

"Don't feel like clothes shopping," Dean declared. "How about you?"

Although Sam would have liked nothing better under ordinary circumstances, he and Dean rarely found themselves in ordinary circumstances, and today was no exception.

Dean was still watching the direction of Ian's retreat in case of any unexpected returns when Sam eventually replied, "You think we can find Blue Earth?"

Dean flashed the kid a wicked grin. "How big can Minnesota be?" he asked, his voice having regained some of its usual cocky over-confidence.

Although Sam would have liked to, he didn't really believe Dean's bravado for a second. But Dean needed him to believe in him right now, so he just nodded his agreement and took his older brother's outstretched hand.

Sam didn't know whether Dean would have known what he meant if he'd described his big brother as a complete contradiction.

But that was what he couldn't help thinking as he followed him dutifully between the clothes racks, ducking down and shadowing his stealthily winding route towards the exit, always keeping cover between them and the direction Ian had taken.

Sam had never known anyone get in as much trouble as Dean did for not doing as he was told, not blindly following instructions like a good little sheep. Although Sam was pretty sure Dad hadn't read one of Dean's report cards since he was about six years old, Sam had been reading them for as long as he'd been able to read, and phrases that recurred most often usually went along the lines of, 'not a follower', 'has difficulty following instructions', or Dean's personal favourite, 'has little or no respect for authority'.

So when Ian told them to pick out clothes like good little boys, let him buy them off with presents, Sam wasn't a bit surprised that Dean intended to do no such thing.

Yet, and here was where that big word 'contradiction' came in, when it came to an order from their Dad, there was nothing on God's green earth that would stop Dean obeying it to the letter.

Dean was one big contradiction, and Sam wasn't sure he'd ever be able to figure him out completely.

Right now, he realised, all he needed to know was this: When Dean said he'd never let anyone hurt him, Sam believed him. And when Dean said they needed to get to Pastor Jim's, Sam believed that too. And while Sam was even less of a follower than Dean most of the time, right now he knew that following Dean was probably the most important thing he'd ever done.

So he ducked his head when Dean told him to, and allowed his older brother to guide him in a less-than-direct route towards the exit, heart hammering in case they should be discovered, but even more terrified in case they actually got away.

Dean might not have much of a clue how far Minnesota was from Kansas, but Sam sure as hell did.

Quite how Dean was expecting to accomplish this little road trip, Sam wasn't sure. Two kids, no money, no real clue where they were going, no weapons and no protection.

But if anyone could do it, Dean could.

Sam tried not to think about all of those special visits they'd had in school from police officers come to warn them of the dangers of talking to strangers, taking candy from strangers, and, the biggest no-no in the book, getting into cars with strangers. After all Sam, unlike most kids his age, knew that there were two types of monster in the world. And human monsters were often the worst.

Sam fought back a wave of panic. _Anything could happen to us…_

"Where are you going?"

Dean pulled up short so suddenly, Sam actually walked into him, letting out a startled yelp as his brother's grip on his hand tightened threefold.

Hardly daring to follow the direction of the voice, Sam finally looked up.

To see Uncle Ian looking back down at them, hands on hips, blocking their exit from the store.

Dean sighed heavily, pulling Sam slightly behind him.

"Crap," he muttered.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Well you didn't think the Great Escape would be that easy did you?


	9. Chapter 8

**A/N and Disclaimer:** Thanks so much to everyone who has helped me reach that magic figure of 100 reviews - my life is now complete... Although it would be more complete if I owned Sam and Dean. Which I still don't. Boo.

After another brief tussle with the Document Manager, here's the next chapter, as I think you all deserve a quick update for all your hard work.

_**Chapter Eight**_

For one brief second, Dean flinched, actually thinking Ian was going to hit him.

But he didn't. He merely reacquainted his hand with Dean's upper arm, squeezing where the boy was already bruised from their previous encounter by the shed, and dragging him out into the shop doorway, Sam on his heels like a frightened puppy.

Eyes flashing angrily, Ian roughly yanked Dean around until they were facing each other, bending down slightly towards him, but not enough to sacrifice the height advantage and give the kid any illusions as to who was in charge here. "I asked you a question, Danny – " he spat, before realising his error. He faltered, his face blanching visibly, and his eyes studiously avoiding Dean's. " – Dean," he corrected quickly, still not looking at him.

Huh.

In a brief flash of insight, Dean suddenly realised that the two 'other' boys the scary-voiced guy in the Mercedes had mentioned _had_ to be the two boys in the photograph in Ian's kitchen: Daniel and Jamie.

Filing that information away for possible future use, Dean just continued to look up at Ian placidly, an innocent expression on his face that really didn't look right on him.

Ian obviously thought the same, shaking him slightly as he gripped him by the arms and pulled him a step closer, looking deep into his eyes before asking again, "Where were you going, Dean?"

Dean's expression remained completely unfazed. "Sammy needed the bathroom," he lied smoothly.

Sometimes it bothered Sam just _how_ smoothly Dean lied.

"Bathroom's that way," Ian pointed out, motioning behind Dean, back into the store.

Dean glanced back, equally unfazed by the unmissable restroom sign towards the rear of the children's wear section. "What can I tell you?" he said, returning his gaze to meet his Uncle's. "I have a lousy sense of direction."

"I _knew_ this would happen," Ian hissed, gritting his teeth and shaking his head. "I just knew it."

He let go of Dean abruptly, pushing him back a little harder than he'd intended, the boy's hand groping for his brother's the second he was released.

Ian's face had rapidly turned from white to scarlet. "Do you know how dangerous a place like this can be for little kids?" he demanded, hands on his hips just like the cop Sam remembered from one of those school 'stranger danger' talks.

"What, like getting fried hair in your burger dangerous?" Dean asked innocently.

The look Ian gave him then suggested that the man would have liked nothing better than to wipe that innocent expression off Dean's face with a well-placed slap.

_Please don't make him angry, Dean!_ Sam willed his brother silently, gripping his hand a lot tighter than was strictly necessary. The slightest glance in his direction told him Dean got the message, his older brother choking down the next retort he'd been planning to use to antagonise their Uncle.

Ian took a deep breath, wiping an exasperated hand across his forehead before continuing, "Do you know how many weirdos hang out in places like this just _looking_ for some kid on their own to take away and – "

"We weren't on our own," Dean pointed out calmly, as Sammy flashed him another pleading look. "We were with each other."

Ian took another deep breath. This smart-aleck kid would test the patience of a saint. "Okay," he said, as calmly as he was able. "I get it, Dean. This is about last night. Sam's nightmare. And this morning. The car…"

"My Dad's car."

"That I don't have!" Ian threw up his hands, before raking them through his hair. "Dean, you could have gotten Sam hurt!" he remonstrated. "Don't you _get_ that?"

Dean raised his chin defensively. "I'd never – "

"Which is why I can't allow this to continue." He made a grab for Sam's hand then, the one still clinging to his big brother's.

But Dean was too quick for him, pulling Sam away and stepping back in one fluid movement that seemed so well executed that it was almost as if he'd been training for this moment his whole life. "Don't even," he warned, tightening his grip on his brother, and meeting Ian's gaze with an icily unblinking stare. "I mean it."

Ian straightened, suddenly intimidated by the feral look in Dean's eye and the determined expression on his young face. Sam had grabbed hold of his brother's arm for good measure, like a drowning man clinging to a life raft, and the two of them just stood there looking up at him, as if daring him to try and come between them.

He ran a hand over his chin, looking away, around the mall, at his feet, anywhere but at the two boys in front of him.

Finally, he turned back, and Dean would have sworn there was an almost apologetic look on his face. "Alright," he said softly, nodding. "If that's the way it has to be…" He trailed off, closing his eyes and shaking his head, before turning his attention to Sam. "Sam," he said, voice still soft and unthreatening. "I need to speak to your brother now. How about you go check out the clothes and – "

"He's not going anywhere without me," Dean replied, his voice every bit as soft as Ian's, but with an underlying tension that was pure steel. "Whatever you've got to say to me you can say in front of him."

Ian sighed, voice hardening slightly. "Sam, go and wait for me by the cash desk."

Sam looked uncertainly up at Dean, before casting a glance in the direction of the cash desk.

"I said no," Dean reiterated.

When Sam didn't move and Dean showed no sign of letting him go anywhere Ian continued, "Look, Dean, I just want to talk. I know you're scared, but we need to work this out – "

"Go right ahead, I'm not stopping you," Dean replied, eyes narrowed.

Ian glanced at Sam again, before finally nodding. "Alright," he surrendered, shoulders slumping slightly. "Look, Dean, I know that your Dad – your Dad's put things in your head – made you suspicious of people – made you think things are real when they're clearly not..."

"My Dad's not a liar," Dean insisted.

Ian inclined his head. "No," he agreed. "He's not. Because _he_ thinks these things are real too. There was nothing sinister about the way your Mom died, Dean. It was a house fire. Nothing more. The wiring was shot – "

"That's not true," Dean shook his head vehemently. "I saw – "

"What did you see?" Ian interrupted. "Your Dad kept spouting these ridiculous stories about your Mom being – " he glanced around to make sure no-one was listening and lowered his voice. " – being on the ceiling. The _ceiling_, Dean! Things like that don't happen…"

"Yes they do!" Dean insisted. "Mom was – "

"Did you see her? On the ceiling?"

Dean faltered, Sam just staring up at him with inquisitive eyes, remembering all the times he'd begged his big brother to tell him what had happened that night.

Dean never would. Not really.

Dean glanced down at Sam before muttering, "I just saw…" before trailing off, unable to meet Ian's accusing gaze.

God, what if Ian was telling the truth? What if Dad had gotten it wrong? What if he'd – what if he'd _lied_?

_No way. No way Dad would lie about something like that._

But still…

"You see?" Ian sounded almost triumphant. "I'm not criticising your father – Post-Traumatic Stress can do terrible things to a person, make them _believe_ terrible things. I'm just saying that for you to put your little brother in harm's way because you believe I'm some kind of – of – " Ian groped for the word. " – of monster? That's very wrong, Dean. Surely you can see that? I admire you for wanting to protect Sam, I really do. And I know your Mom would have been really proud of you." Dean looked back up at him then. "So I want you to know I'm not mad at you. I know what you were trying to do. You were planning on taking off with your brother, right? That's why I let you guys alone. Just to see. Just to see if you'd try it."

Dean just continued to gaze up at him, no expression on his face.

Ian nodded, understanding. "I get it," he said. "But do you have any idea what might have happened to you? If you got on the wrong bus and ended up in the wrong neighbourhood? Got in a car with the wrong guy?"

Sam convulsively squeezed Dean's arm then, and for the first time, Dean was suddenly beset by self-doubt. What if he _had_ imagined it all? What if he really _had_ put Sammy in danger? How could he live with himself? How could he live with being a danger to Sam? Sam had been scared, he'd known that. He hadn't wanted to run off to Minnesota. But he would have done it. He would have done it because he'd do anything for Dean; he'd follow him to the ends of the Earth if he had to.

It was too much power. Dean had too much power over Sam. And that made him a danger to his kid brother. Him. Dean. A danger to Sam.

How the hell had he let _that_ happen?

He bit his lip nervously, and this time didn't flinch when Ian put a gentle hand on his shoulder and looked him deep in the eye.

"Look," he said carefully. "We need to talk about this. I get the feeling your Dad doesn't really talk to you, doesn't really discuss this stuff. And I think you need some help with it. I really think you need some help, Dean. So. I'm going to take Sam over to the kids' play area – look, it's just down at the end of the mall…" he pointed to a bright red set of double doors way over in the distance with a multi-coloured day-glo sign hung above them. For some reason, Dean couldn't for the life of him figure out what the sign said. "…And then I'm going to come back and you and I are going to talk this through, man to man. Okay? And then the three of us are going to pick you guys out those new clothes. Alright?"

Dean could hear that Ian was talking, but the words all seemed to be running into each other, like a watercolour left out in the rain.

Sam looked up at his brother, who was just standing there, slightly open-mouthed, a glazed expression on his face and eyes that looked kind of out of focus.

"Dean?" Sam squeezed Dean's arm again. "Dean?"

Dean didn't even look down, just continued to stare at – or maybe _through_ – Ian's chest. "Okay," he muttered distractedly, as if his voice was a thousand miles away.

Ian smiled, patting him on the shoulder. "Good boy," he said. "I knew you could be reasonable."

Sam frowned then, grip tightening on Dean's arm as Ian held out a hand towards him.

"Come on, Sam," he said. "Don't be scared. Dean and I just need to talk. Right, Dean?"

Sam didn't let go of his brother. Not for one second. "Dean?" he whispered, shaking his arm slightly. Still no response.

"Right, Dean?" Ian enunciated the words more clearly, raising his eyebrows at the older boy.

"Right," Dean said, sounding even more distant. "Right." Still not looking down, eyes not blinking, he added, "Sam, go with Ian," before letting go of the younger boy's hand.

But Sam didn't loosen his grip on Dean's arm. "Dean?" he said uncertainly, tugging at his wrist now to try and get his attention. "Dean!"

Dean's line of vision never wavered, still fixed on some point in the middle of Ian's chest.

Panic started to well in Sam's stomach. Something was wrong.

Something was _very_ wrong.

Sam wasn't sure how he knew, but he just knew.

Something was wrong with Dean.

"Dean? Dean!" Sam moved in front of his brother, taking his other wrist and pulling. But Dean didn't even move, eyes still staring into the space above Sam's head.

"Come on, Sam," Ian repeated, reaching to take Sam's hand.

But Sam snatched it away, moving further behind his brother, who continued to just _stand_ there, like some kind of freaky human statue.

This was all new to Sam. This Saving Dean stuff. It wasn't right. It wasn't _natural_. Dean didn't need saving. Dean _never_ needed saving. And yet today… Sam wasn't sure he was up to it a second time.

"Dean, please listen," Sam whispered, clinging to his brother's shirt as he tried to keep him between himself and their Uncle. "Dean, can you even hear me?"

"Sam?" Ian said, voice hard. "Sam, come with me."

Sam shook his head violently. "No," he said, sounding every bit as stubborn and determined as his big brother. "I won't! What did you do to Dean?" His eyes flashed, and Ian just shrugged, shaking his head resignedly.

"Oh, Sam, not you too!" he burst out, snaking out a hand and this time succeeding in grabbing Sam's wrist. "Come on, Sam. Let's go for a walk."

"No!" Sam tried to pull away, tried to keep a hold of his brother, but Ian was a hell of a lot bigger than either of them. "No! Dean!" He felt his fingers slip on his brother's arm, trying to hang on as Ian pulled him away. "Dean?" he whispered, looking up into his brother's eyes and seeing only oblivious hazel. "Dean?" He wasn't there. Dean wasn't in there.

"Don't worry, Sam," Ian tried to reassure him. "It's going to be fine. I'm going to get Dean the help he needs," and this time, when he tugged at Sam's wrist, the fingers of the little boy's hand finally lost their grip on his brother's arm.

"Wait right here, Dean," Ian said firmly, pulling Sam further away from him.

"Yes sir," Dean replied mechanically, still staring off into space.

"That's my good little soldier."

Sam's eyes widened at that, fairly screaming at his brother, "Dean, he's not Dad! Dean!"

But Dean just stood there, still gazing off into the distance with dark unfocussed eyes.

"Dean?" Sam struggled as Ian tried to pull him away, failing miserably to dig his heels against the polished tile floor, but refusing to go quietly.

He'd done something to Dean. Dean would never have let this happen otherwise. He only took orders from Dad – only from Dad…

"Dean! Dean, please!" Sam was yelling now, reaching out a flailing hand towards his brother. But he was too far away, and he grasped only thin air. "No!" Sam directed his screams against Ian then, kicking at his shins and doing his damnedest to bite the hand holding on to his wrist. "Get off me!"

People were starting to look now, housewives with little kids in strollers, groups of giggling teens excitedly cutting class; a big burly security guard standing over by the fire exit.

That's who Sam needed.

"Sir!" he yelled at the top of his lungs. "Sir, this guy's trying to kidnap me!" It was such a Dean thing for Sam to say that he was certain it would work.

The security guard was moving towards them then, a look of concern on his thick-set features, just as Ian managed to wrestle Sam enough to pick him up like a slippery eel, wedging him against his hip with a strong arm wrapped around his waist, pinning his arms to his sides.

"Sir…?" the security guard said, his controlled amble scarcely disguising his sense of purpose.

Sam managed to land a kick to Ian's thigh just as the big man stopped in front of them, eyebrows raised in surprise.

Ian bit back a wince and smiled his best smile. "My nephew," he laughed, indicating Sam with a nod of the head. "Just hit the tantrum stage of the day! Mad 'cause I wouldn't spring for two-hundred and fifty dollar sneakers! Honestly, I don't know where they come up with these price tags!"

The guard nodded, face still deadly serious. "Can I see some ID sir?" he asked, hand resting rather obviously on the gun at his hip.

Ian smiled again, eyes briefly skimming the guard's holstered weapon as he fished in his pocket for his wallet with his free hand. "Of course," he said, managing to one-handedly pull out his drivers licence while Sam scowled at him like he was the Devil incarnate.

Which he very well might have been for all Sam knew.

The security guard gave Ian's licence the once over, before handing it back. "So this is your nephew, Mr Sherwood?" he said, looking at Sam pointedly.

Ian nodded. "My sister's boy. A real handful."

The security guard nodded again. "Um-hm," he said, attention still on Sam. "So son," he said. "You're not really being kidnapped, huh?"

Sam opened his mouth to scream, _YES, YES, YES!_ at the guard, but before he could, Ian turned his head sideways, the words, "Dean could get hurt," suddenly whispered in the boy's ear.

Sam froze before the words had even left his mouth, looking over at the security guard to see if he had heard. But his face seemed as blank and impassive as Dean's had been.

Sam clenched his jaw and reluctantly shook his head.

The security guard nodded. "Well okay then," he said, turning his attention back to Ian before adding, "You have a nice day now."

Ian smiled, clutching Sam to him tightly, the little boy's chest rising and falling nineteen to the dozen. "We will," he assured the guard, turning abruptly and heading down the mall as fast as he was able. "Good boy," he muttered in Sam's ear.

The last thing Sam saw as Uncle Ian carried him away was Dean still standing in the clothes store doorway, staring off into space.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dean's head felt funny.

He felt as if he'd been standing here for hours.

When was Uncle Ian coming back? It was sure taking him a long time to drop Sam off at the kids' play area.

_You shouldn't have let him take Sam away_, his little voice broke in on his muddied thoughts. _You promised him you wouldn't let anything bad happen to him!_

_Nothing bad's going to happen, _Dean reassured himself. _Sam's with Uncle Ian._ He wondered why his legs ached so much. He was sure he'd only been waiting here a few minutes. Ian couldn't have been gone _that_ long…

He felt suddenly angry at himself, but wasn't sure why.

Then he remembered, and his chest hurt almost as much as his head.

_How could I have fallen for all Dad's 'monster' crap?_ he asked himself. _Am I really that stupid? Fell for it hook, line and sinker. Dumb old Dean. Tell him anything and he'll believe it…_

But he wasn't sure that was _all_ he was angry about. Something else. Something…

_And what was with the white-eyes thing? It was the lighting. Just like Uncle Ian said. And how stupid was I to fall into that pool? Good job Sammy was there to pull me out…_

_Poor Sammy. I passed Dad's lies on to him. And he believed me. Because I believed Dad…_

Something was wrong. Something was missing. He was supposed to be doing something. He was supposed to be going somewhere…

_As if Mom _ever_ could have burned on the ceiling! Who thinks up this stuff? God I'm _so_ stupid! To have believed it all those years, when I never even saw… When I don't even remember…_

Where was he supposed to be going again? He'd been running somewhere. Running from someone…

He tried to remember.

He tried to remember the night Mom died.

He remembered the flames.

He remembered the terror on Dad's face.

He remembered holding Sam real tight in his arms.

And he remembered the blood on Sam's blanket.

Blood.

Mom's blood.

She'd been on the ceiling above Sam's crib.

Sam.

Where was Sam?

_Where the hell was Sam?_

Dean glanced around him, as if seeing the world for the first time.

He shook his head, as if to clear it, but it hurt so much and he couldn't seem to get his eyes to focus.

White eyes. He'd _seen_ Ian with white eyes.

The car. He'd _seen_ Dad's car.

The pool. He'd been _pushed_ into the pool, he hadn't fallen.

And he knew – he _knew_ Mom had burned up on the ceiling, just like Dad said.

Because Dad would never lie to him. _Never._

How could he have believed that?

Ian.

Ian had Sam.

Ian had taken Sam right out from under his nose and he'd _let_ him. He'd let him take him. While he'd just stood there.

Sam had been screaming. Sam had begged him.

But he'd just stood there.

How long had he been standing here?

He glanced at the big clock above the fish tank in the centre of the mall. 1:30. Oh my god – he'd been standing here for _two hours_! Sam had been gone two whole hours! He could be anywhere! He could be three states away! He could be –

_Ian did something to me_, Dean finally realised, putting a hand to his forehead. His skin was cold and clammy as blind panic started to set in. _He did something to me so that I wouldn't stop him taking Sammy! That guy – that guy in the Mercedes said he had to 'dispose' of me. This is how he's disposed of me? By ditching me at the _mall_? That's pretty lame, even for a possessed lawyer. Or whatever the hell he is._

_But I heard Dad…_

Dean closed his eyes and concentrated really hard.

"_Wait right here, Dean,"_ Dad had said.

And he'd replied, _"Yes, sir,"_ like he always did. Follow orders. Good soldier. Good son.

"_Dean, he's not Dad!"_

That's what Sammy had screamed at him.

_Oh my God, he was in my head!_

The realisation hit him like a ton of bricks.

Ian had made him hear his Dad. Ian had made him hear his Dad because his Dad was the only person who Dean would ever trust to take Sam out of his sight.

_He made me hear Dad. And he took Sam._

Dean felt the panic reach melting point as his head felt like it might actually explode, right there in the middle of this nice suburban shopping mall.

_Stupid, stupid, stupid. It's all _your_ fault!_

Okay, take a breath. _Think, Dean, think…_

So Ian wouldn't take Sam home would he? Would he be that obvious? Could it be that simple? It had only taken them about twenty minutes to get here. Did he really think such a short distance would keep Dean away?

And then, just as he was beginning to think maybe Sam wasn't as lost to him as he'd initially thought, he realised something else.

He didn't know Ian's last name.

And he didn't know where he lived.

_Crap._

_--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------_

Minor DIP cliffie. Maybe more of a SIP cliffie. Resolution hopefully coming soon...

Thanks again for all your reviews! Feel free to carry on though!


	10. Chapter 9

**A/N: **Continued thanks to everyone reading and everyone leaving feedback. You're making an old woman very very happy... But I suspect some of you may be a bit unhappy with some of the content of this chapter. Please remember, _not everything is as it seems..._

Apologies for the English joke. Cheap marketing ploy to get people to read one of my other fics (_Thicker Than Water_ - shorter and less angstified than this one). If you don't notice the English joke, then just pretend this paragraph never happened...

_**Chapter Nine**_

"Sam, it's for Dean's own good."

Sam glared sullenly at Ian's reflection in the rear view mirror, arms folded across his chest as he tried to remember what Dean had told him about jimmying child locks on car doors. "How is abandoning him at the mall for 'his own good'?" he demanded, anger having almost driven the terror from his system. He wasn't going to capitulate and play victim. He was going to stand up to the bully, just like Dean would.

Ian frowned as he pulled up at a red light, glancing at Sam in the back seat. "I didn't abandon him," he said. "I left him with my friend."

Sam frowned right back. "What friend?" he demanded.

"The man I left him with at the mall."

Sam thought for a second. "I didn't see any man…" he began, before suddenly remembering that Ian _had_ been speaking to a man before they left Dean. Yes, he had. He remembered now. A tall man with slicked back silver hair…

No wait.

There hadn't been a man there.

Had there?

"You might have seen him at the house earlier," Ian continued, pulling away as the light changed to green.

"The – the man in the silver car?" Sam offered tentatively. Because that would kind of make sense.

"Yeah, that was him," Ian confirmed.

"Who is he?" Sam asked.

"He's a psychiatric social worker," Ian answered, before noticing the blank look on Sam's face. "He looks after kids with – problems. You know. Emotional problems. Things they can't deal with…"

Sam squinted at him. "Dean doesn't have any 'emotional problems'," he insisted. At least, he didn't seem to have this morning… "'Cause you're saying he's crazy, right?"

Ian laughed awkwardly. "No, Sam!" he said. "I'm just concerned that Dean may be – may be struggling to cope with things, that's all. And my friend agreed."

"So why didn't your friend just take Dean away to help him when he was at your house this morning?" Sam's frown intensified.

"Well," Ian replied. "That's what we were discussing. My friend thought it might upset Dean to take him away from you – and away from a new home, however temporary – all at the same time, that's why he suggested we do it somewhere neutral, like the mall. And that's why I tried to get you to wait in the store. I thought it might make it easier on Dean if you weren't there."

Sam nodded, thoughtfully. "So what things?" he asked.

Ian frowned. "What – ?"

"What 'things' is Dean struggling to cope with?" Sam clarified.

"Well," Ian paused, looking out at the traffic before deciding this was a conversation he couldn't have whilst driving. Sam deserved his full attention.

He pulled the car into the side of the street, before unclipping his seal belt and twisting so that he was more-or-less facing Sam.

Sam looked up at him expectantly.

"Well, Sam," Ian began. "Dean's had to deal with a lot, you know? Your Mom dying. Your Dad taking off. You."

"Me?"

"From what I understand, he's pretty much looked out for you since you were a baby, right?"

Sam thought about that before nodding.

"That's a lot of responsibility for a boy Dean's age."

Sam nodded again. "But why would that make him crazy?"

"Not crazy," Ian repeated. "He's just got some problems he needs to deal with. I don't know whether he ever told you he stopped talking after your Mom passed?"

Sam shook his head. "Didn't know that till you said about it before."

"There's a lot you don't know about Dean, Sam," Ian said. Sam frowned at that. "And a lot you don't know about your Dad."

Sam's brow furrowed still further. "Like what?" he asked, too young to realise he might not want to know the answer.

Ian's face had crumpled into a mask of sympathy. "Well," he began slowly. "You know I said I work with kids in trouble?" Sam nodded. "Well, I've seen a lot of kids whose parents…" he paused, searching for the right phrase. "Whose parents hurt them."

Sam's eyes widened, and he sat bolt upright. "Dad never hurt us!" he burst out.

Ian waved him quiet. "He never hurt _you_," he said. "Sam, I know what to look for. I know the signs. Kids whose parents or carers hit them, or – or – "

"Dad never hit us," Sam interrupted again. "Ever."

"Sam," Ian reached over and took Sam's hand, and although the boy thought about snatching it away, for some reason he didn't. "Sam, these people – these people who hurt their kids. They do it in such a way that no-one knows. Leave bruises where they don't show. Make sure no-one's around to hear the noises…"

Sam's face paled visibly. "Dad never…" he began, shaking his head. "Never."

"Dean may have stopped him hurting you," Ian continued. "I've seen the way he protects you. He would never have let your Dad hurt you. He would have taken it on himself and made sure you didn't know. I've seen it before in older siblings…"

Sam brushed a tear angrily from his cheek. "Why – why would he do that?" he asked, feeling like his whole world had just lurched and wobbled around him and might come tumbling down at any minute. "Why would he lie to me?"

Ian shrugged. "To protect you, Sam. Sometimes the truth can hurt more than someone hitting you."

"But – but – " Sam choked back the tears. "Why would Daddy hurt Dean?" It didn't make any sense to him. "Dean always does what Daddy says. Always. And he never, ever talks back to him. Not like me. Daddy says I ask too many questions. But not Dean. Daddy only ever gets mad at him when he does something wrong – like the time it took him too long to put a rifle back together; or the time he didn't clean his gun properly; or when he couldn't hold his breath for three minutes…" Sam trailed off, suddenly realising Dad actually got mad at Dean quite a lot. "And if he thinks Dean isn't taking good enough care of me," he added. "Or if _I_ make Dad mad, he usually ends up mad at Dean instead."

Ian was nodding. "You see?" he said. "You could probably see it, but just didn't want to believe it."

"But Daddy loves us."

"Yes he does," Ian agreed. "But your Dad's been through a lot too. And now it's time you and Dean got the help I should have given you a long time ago."

"When you tried to take us away from Dad before?" Sam knew what the word 'custody' meant too.

Ian nodded solemnly. "When your Dad kept Dean's head underwater in the bathtub that time," he explained. "I'd already started to notice some bruises on your brother. I guess this was before your Dad knew how to hide them. But I suppose I didn't want to believe it either, so I looked the other way." He wiped a tear off Sam's cheek before adding, "Well, not any more."

Sam swallowed, trying to be brave like he knew Dean would want him to be. "When can Dean come home?" he asked.

Ian shrugged sadly. "When my friend's made him better," he replied.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dean Winchester rarely allowed himself the luxury of tears… except when really necessary.

It wasn't exactly hard to get them to come – he only had to start imagining what Ian might be doing to Sammy right now – what he'd _let_ Ian do to Sammy right now – and that was more than enough incentive.

So when he approached the nice lady at the Information Desk, he was sure he looked appropriately terrified and pathetic. Although, not for the first time he wished he shared Sam's puppy dog eyes.

Brushing rather obviously at the tears running down his cheek, Dean looked up at the lady at the desk with the most anguished expression he could manage to plaster across his face.

Again, not hard considering what might be happening to his little brother.

"Oh honey!" the lady burst out, looking down at him like he was the sweetest thing she'd ever seen in her life. "Are you alright?"

Dean bit back the urge to snap, _Of course I'm not alright_ – he squinted at her name tag – _Gloria, I've lost my kid brother!_

Instead, he played the only role he figured just might get him out of this particularly catastrophic jam. "I kinda lost my Uncle," he managed to sob pretty damn convincingly. "Guess I got turned around in one of the stores, and now I don't know where he is or how to get back to his house…"

"Oh sweetie! You poor thing!" Gloria stepped out immediately from behind the desk, her various necklaces dangling in Dean's face as she put a thick arm around his shoulder and bent down towards him. "You live with your Uncle?"

Dean shook his head, turning on some more of the waterworks. Jeez, he _so_ should look into acting some day… "I'm just visiting," he choked. "So I don't know his address or anything!"

Gloria stroked his hair, and Dean had to concentrate really hard to resist pushing her hand away. Wow, her perfume was strong. He thought he might actually pass out if she pulled him much closer. "There there, honey," she cooed, steering him towards the Information Desk, where one of her colleagues, an equally maternal-looking Hispanic lady with bright red hair piled up on top of her head, had hurriedly gotten rid of a couple looking for a drug store so that she could come over and see what all the fuss was about.

"What's your Uncle's name, honey?" the red-headed lady asked. Dean peered through Gloria's necklaces and saw that her name was Anita.

"Ian," Dean replied, choking artfully on his tears as he added, "But I don't know his last name."

Anita's smile faltered as she exchanged a glance with Gloria. "Well, maybe he's still in the centre," she said. "If he is, we could try the tannoy. And then we should be able to find him, even without a last name."

Gloria nodded. "Sure," she agreed, turning her attention back to Dean. "What's your name, sugar?"

Dean narrowly avoided a grimace. _Honey? Sugar? Sweetie?_ One thing Dean Winchester _wasn't_ was sweet…

"Dean," he supplied, cautiously.

"Dean what?" Gloria prodded.

Dean thought about that for a second. It was fairly irrelevant, so he guessed the truth couldn't hurt for once. "Winchester," he admitted.

"Like the cathedral?" Anita asked.

Dean frowned at her. "Huh?" he said. "No, like the rifle."

Anita gave him a 'kids today' shake of the head, before heading over towards a microphone on the far side of the Information Desk. She pushed a button on the side, her voice suddenly booming loudly over the mall's p.a. system. "Ladies and gentlemen," she said, enunciating each word extra-carefully. "We have a lost little boy in the centre today…"

_Less of the 'little', lady…_

"His name is Dean Winchester, and he's lost his Uncle Ian. If his Uncle could visit the first floor Information Desk, I'm sure Dean will be very happy to see him."

_Happy my ass_, Dean thought, trying hard to maintain Scared Face as Anita headed back over in his direction. "Thanks," he said to her, trying to make his voice sound a little shakier. It obviously worked, as her face crumpled sympathetically and Gloria gave his shoulder an extra squeeze. "But what if he's gone home without me? What if he thinks I'll be able to find my own way back there…?"

A flash of navy blue caught Dean's attention then, and he only just managed to subdue a grin. Perfect. He'd never been so happy to see a cop.

"Hear you've got a lost kid," the Police officer said, ambling over to the Information Desk as if he had all day to get there. He stuck his thumbs in his gun belt, which appeared to be straining to hold in his rather expansive stomach, and rocked on his toes like some copper in a fifties gangster movie.

Gloria brightened considerably at the officer's approach, Dean all but forgotten as she smiled broadly, all bright red lipstick and shiny white teeth. "Why, Officer Semansky!" she gushed, fluttering her eyelashes and giggling like a schoolgirl. "We haven't seen you around these parts for _days_!"

The cop smiled his best 'well howdy, little lady' smile, before adding, "Oh, I never could stay away from you for long, Mrs O'Donnell!"

Dean resisted the urge to vomit. _Hey! Lost kid here! _he felt like yelling.

"So you're the one who's lost, huh?" Officer Semansky looked Dean over, as if sizing him up.

"Yes sir," Dean managed as meekly as possible.

Anita joined the conversation then. "Lost his Uncle," she said. "Doesn't know his last name or his address."

The three adults shook their heads in unison.

"Poor little thing," Gloria cooed, touching Dean's hair again.

_If I only had a gun…_

The cop bent town towards him then, and Dean actually had to take a step back or he may have choked on the stench of cigarettes and cheap aftershave.

"Too bad, son," the cop said, putting fingers like undercooked sausages on Dean's shoulder. "Without your knowing his name or address, your Uncle's gonna be pretty hard to track down."

_About time, Grandpa!_

Dean threw the officer his most innocently winning smile. "Yes sir," he agreed. Then, almost as an afterthought, "But if it helps, I _do_ know the license plate number of his car…"

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sam leaned his forehead against the window, letting the cool glass numb his aching brow. His arms clutched at his knees as he sat scrunched up on the window ledge, staring out over Ian's front garden and across to the houses on the other side of the street.

So he'd finally gotten his dearest wish: a house in the suburbs; big garden; pool – that was a bonus; an adult to look out for him who didn't think learning to strip a rifle was more important than learning to throw a baseball; and Uncle Ian had even said he might enrol Sam in school next week if Dad hadn't come to pick him up by then.

Sam hadn't asked what would happen if Dad _did_ come to pick him up.

But there was one vital component missing from Sam's Suburban Fantasy.

In all the times he'd dreamed of a life of ordinariness, of normality, all the times he'd wished for it, all the times he'd yearned for it, he'd never once imagined it without Dean.

Without Dad? Well that was another thing altogether, and the way Sam felt about Dad right now, he didn't even feel guilty for wishing he _never_ came to pick him up.

Dean, however, was a different story.

Sure, the house was cool: there was satellite TV and the latest video game console; and Uncle Ian had a home computer he'd promised to show Sam how to use.

But it didn't mean anything without Dean.

What was the fun of the latest video game if you had no-one to play it with? And wasn't the best part about watching fuzzy re-runs on those crappy motel TVs Dean's constant running commentary – why Starsky's car was way cooler than KITT; why Godzilla would totally kick King Kong's ass; why Flash Gordon looked so much like Buck Rogers…

And then there was school. How would Sam _ever_ be able to handle school without Dean there to back him up?

He sighed, banging his head against the window as he wondered for the thousandth time when Dean would be coming home.

Because no way would this ever be home without him.

Once again, his chest ached when he thought about Dean's having lied to him. When Uncle Ian had first told Sam of his suspicions regarding their Dad's treatment of his big brother, he hadn't believed it for a second.

But the more he thought about it, the more sense it started to make: Maybe Dean always followed Dad's orders because he was terrified of what Dad would do to him if he didn't. Maybe that was why Dean always seemed to get more banged up on hunts than Sam did – maybe there were already bruises there to begin with. What if Dad really _had_ tried to drown Dean to see whether he was possessed?

If all of this was true, then how long would Dean take to fix?

"Sam?" Ian entered the room quietly, and Sam didn't turn to face him, just carried on gazing out the window through reddened eyes. "My friend's coming soon – the one who's trying to help Dean."

That got Sam's attention, and he spun off the window ledge, standing up so straight Ian thought he might break something. "Is he bringing Dean back?" he asked hopefully, eyes almost pleading.

Ian shook his head apologetically. "No, kiddo," he said. "Not yet. He wants to talk to you for a while. You know. Make sure _you're_ alright."

Sam looked confused at that. "You think _I'm_ crazy too?" he asked.

Ian smiled sadly. "No, Sam," he said. "He just wants to talk to you, that's all." He put a hand on Sam's shoulder, before lowering his voice conspiratorially. "I think he wants to see how long you can go before you mention your brother." He laughed, but somehow Sam thought it sounded forced. "So maybe it'd be better if you just didn't mention Dean at all. Huh?"

That made no sense to Sam, and his frown demonstrated the fact.

Ian smiled awkwardly. "It – it'd just be better for Dean," he added by way of explanation.

Sam still didn't get it, but if his not mentioning Dean would be better for his big brother, then he wouldn't mention him. "Okay," he said slowly.

"Good," Ian seemed to sigh in relief, and was about to say something else when his attention was caught by movement beyond the window. "What the – ?"

Sam turned to follow his gaze, to where a Police car had just turned into their driveway.

Ian blanched, and he glanced at Sam, muttering, "Stay here," before disappearing out the door.

Sam faltered for a second, glancing backwards at the Police car, before gingerly following Ian from the room, pulling the door open as quietly as he could and creeping along the hallway to the top of the stairs, where he peered round the banister and down towards the front door, which was slightly out of his view.

Ian was taking the stairs two at a time, already at the bottom before a navy blue silhouette appeared beyond the leaded glass panel at the top of the door, one hand raised as if to knock.

Ian beat him to it, wrenching open the door just as the burly middle-aged cop on the porch pulled a familiar-looking young boy up the steps and pushed him towards the door.

Ian glanced down, just as Dean treated him to his biggest, sunniest grin.

"Hi, Uncle Ian!" he burst out breezily. "Bet you didn't expect to see me so soon."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dean arrives just in time for popcorn and they all live happily ever after... I'm kidding, by the way...

Might be a longer gap before the next chapter appears, but at least I've not left you with a cliffie for a change!


	11. Chapter 10

**A/N: **Okay, so I managed to get this chapter up a bit faster than anticipated... Again, apologies for the cliffie... I'm really _not _sticking them in at random just to torture you all... Although the next chapter might take a while as I'm still struggling with it - yes coming soon, the dreaded exposition chapter...!

Many many many thanks for all the reviews! I'm sure you can all see me blushing from where you're sitting...

_**Chapter Ten**_

"So, thanks for bringing him back, Officer Semansky," Ian called lightly, as the portly Police officer waddled back towards his squad car.

"Just make sure you don't go losing him again," the cop warned, easing himself back into the driver's seat.

Ian put his arm around Dean's shoulders, smiling at the cop as he reversed out of the driveway and headed off down the road.

Dean tensed, waiting for the inevitable, still scarcely able to believe the cop had fallen for Ian's garbled explanation about Dean's kid brother having told him that his sibling had gone off with some older kids he knew and had said he'd be getting a ride home with them.

Dean hadn't pointed out to the officer that he and Sam didn't actually _know_ any kids around here. And he certainly hadn't filled him in on the whole 'mind control, ditch you in the mall while I kidnap your little brother' thing.

The old cop was good for a DMV check and a ride home, but Dean doubted he would be of much use against the Forces of Evil out to get his kid brother.

Ian's grip on Dean's shoulder tightened as Officer Semansky's car drew away down the street, and when the cop was completely out of sight, he grabbed hold of Dean's t-shirt and fairly dragged him into the house, nearly pulling him off his feet in the process.

_Here we go_, Dean thought, as Ian swung the boy around in front of him, taking hold of his arms and shaking him rather harder than Dean had expected.

"You shouldn't be here!" Ian spat through gritted teeth, while all Dean could do was try and stay on is feet.

"Where's Sam?" he demanded, scowling angrily at his Uncle. "If you've hurt him…"

Ian cut him off. "Do you know what'll happen if he finds you here?" he hissed. "Why couldn't you just stay _lost_? Why did you have to come back here?"

"_Bad penny_'s my middle name, dude," Dean returned, trying to disentangle himself from Ian's grip. "Now let me see Sam…"

"You can't see him!" Ian snapped. "Or – or – _he_ can't see _you_! If Sam sees you, then he'll know – " He stopped dead, attention drawn to something over Dean's shoulder, face paling visibly. Dean could feel the guy trembling. "No," he whispered. "Dammit, no…"

Dean tried to turn to see what Ian was looking at, but as soon as he heard the soft thrum of an engine heading their way, he knew he didn't need to, guessing correctly that the silver Mercedes had just turned into the driveway.

Ian pulled Dean away from the door, slamming it behind him so hard the glass panel rattled. "He can't know you're here," he said, grabbing Dean by the wrist and trying to drag him along the hallway.

"Dean?"

"Sammy!" The second Dean heard his brother's voice drifting uncertainly down the stairs, he dug his heels in and refused to budge. "Sam! You okay little brother?"

He heard Sam's footsteps as the kid started charging down the stairs towards him, but never got any closer thanks to a strong arm suddenly wrapping itself around his midriff and hoisting him up into the air.

"Dammit!" Dean cursed, kicking out at anything vaguely Ian-shaped. "Get off me!"

"He can't see you!" Ian sounded desperate, half-carrying, half-dragging Dean down the hallway in the opposite direction from Sam. "If Sam sees you, he'll know! Dean, he'll know! He'll know you're alive – he'll know you're _here_ – and he'll _kill_ you!"

For a second Dean stopped kicking. "Let go of me, you freak!" he spat. "Sam's not going to kill me!"

"No," Ian said. "Not Sam." His eyes darted to the front door, where the silhouette of an approaching figure in an expensive grey suit could be seen through the glass. "But _he_ will!"

"Dean?" Sam had landed at the bottom of the stairs, causing Dean to resume struggling with Ian's death grip.

"Let go!" he yelled, trying to bite Ian's hand as he suddenly found it slapped across his mouth. He drew in a startled breath, the rest of his curses muffled as he clawed at Ian's hand.

"Dean, I'm sorry," Ian said, dragging him backwards. "It's for your own good. I mean it, he'll kill you."

Dean heard the sound of a key grinding in a lock behind him, a 'clink' as a padlock was opened, and the creak of a door. The next thing he knew Ian was shoving him roughly into what he at first thought to be a storage cupboard, before suddenly realising he was at the top of the stairs leading down into the forbidden basement.

Ian looked positively panic-stricken, one hand pressed against Dean's chest as he tried to keep him from running straight back out into the hallway. "Dean, please be quiet," he begged. "If he finds out you're still here – if he finds out I couldn't do it…"

"Dean!"

Dean could hear Sam skidding along the hallway towards him, but try as he might, he couldn't get past Ian, who just kept pushing him back into the basement.

"Couldn't do what?" he demanded. When Ian didn't answer, eyes darting towards Sam and the front door behind him as a heavy knocking echoed around the hallway, Dean repeated, "Couldn't do _what_?"

Ian looked down at him then, real fear in his eyes. "I was supposed to kill you," he admitted softly, not meeting Dean's gaze.

Dean swallowed hard.

"When he finds out I couldn't do it – "

"That's why you ditched me?"

"Dean. Just be quiet," Ian pleaded. "Please. Just be quiet. If he doesn't know you're here, he can't hurt you." Another rap on the door made Ian start like a frightened rabbit, and he just looked at Dean. "I'm not lying to you," he said, earnestly. "He'll kill you."

And with that, he slammed the door.

"No!" Dean kicked at the door as hard as he could, the sound of the padlock clicking back into place causing him to bang his fists against the wood as he yelled at the top of his lungs, "Lemme outta here you asshole! I mean it! Lemme out!"

"Dean!" Dean could hear Ian's pleading voice on the other side of the door, and he desisted with the racket for a second, just as another loud rapping could be heard on the front door. "Dean, please!" Ian actually seemed to be begging. "I admit, I've lied to you a lot over these past couple of days…"

_I _knew_ it!_

"But believe me when I tell you this: If he finds out you're here, he'll kill you. I'm not kidding, Dean. Please be quiet. Please. I won't let him do anything to Sam, I swear. But if you ever want to see your brother again, you've got to be quiet. Please believe me."

Dean leaned his head against the door, thinking. "Swear to me you won't let him hurt Sam," he insisted, just as a decidedly more impatient knock echoed down the hallway.

A pause. Then, "I swear."

Dean took a deep breath, but didn't resume kicking the crap out of the lousy door.

"Uncle Ian, where's Dean?" he heard Sam's voice, and wanted so badly to get out there to him that he thought he would die right there.

"Don't worry, Sam," he heard Ian say, his voice somehow different. Almost _sincere_. "He's okay. But he won't stay that way if the man at the door finds out he's here. You get me?"

Dean strained to hear Sam's reply.

"He's not here to make Dean better, is he?" Sam asked.

"No," Ian replied shortly.

There was a pause, then, "I get you."

And then Dean heard the front door open, and after that he couldn't hear anything at all.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"This must be Sam," the guy with the silver hair said cheerfully, reaching out a hand towards the little boy in front of him.

Sam took an instinctive step backwards, so used to Dean being there that he almost expected his brother to step in front of him like he usually did if anything threatened them. But Dean wasn't there, and Ian merely pushed him gently forwards again.

"Shake his hand, Sam," Ian instructed him quietly. He was trembling, and Sam didn't understand why.

Sam tentatively took the man's outstretched hand, an involuntary shudder running down his spine at the touch of the unnaturally cold skin.

"Sam, I'm Mr Oliver," the man said, not offering to remove his dark glasses as he stepped over the threshold and into the house uninvited. He glanced about himself, a frown visible on his deathly pale face, and Sam would have sworn he was sniffing the air around him like a bloodhound.

The smile on his thin lips became thinner, and he turned his attention to Ian very briefly. "Is there anyone else in the house?" he asked, an innocent enough question on anyone else's lips, but on his it sounded to Sam like an accusation.

Mr Oliver's attention had drifted to the padlocked basement door, and he took a hesitant step towards it, frown deepening.

Ian moved in front of him. "Only – " he began, before looking down at Sam and smiling weakly.

Mr Oliver appeared to come back to himself, attention returning to Ian. "Yes," he said. "Of course. That must be what I was sensing."

Ian nodded eagerly. "Yes," he agreed. "Erm. Should we – do you want – ?"

"Yes," Mr Oliver cut him off. "We should begin. Time grows short. Lead the way."

Ian smiled awkwardly, taking Sam's hand and leading the boy back towards the stairs. "Come on, Sam," he said quietly.

Sam followed reluctantly, almost afraid to take his eyes off Mr Oliver, who followed behind them, a little too close for comfort.

Ian led Sam back up to his bedroom, taking him inside and motioning for him to sit on the bed. Sam hesitated for a second when Ian let go of his hand and Mr Oliver made to sit next to him.

Sam _really_ didn't like this. This guy was _way_ creepy, and he suddenly found himself wishing Ian still had a hold of his hand.

Mr Oliver smiled, folding his own hands neatly in his lap. "So, Sam," he said. "I've been wanting to meet you for some time now."

Sam looked surprised. "We – we've only been here a couple of days…" he stammered.

Mr Oliver laughed, a cold sound like ice cracking. "Yes," he agreed. "But I've been waiting to meet you much longer than that. It's been a couple of years at least since you first came to my attention."

Sam's eyes darted to Ian's in alarm, but Ian just stared at the carpet and moved further towards the door. "How – how did you – why – ?"

"A friend of mine," Mr Oliver explained. "A teacher at one of your old schools. She thought you and I would get along. She thought that we would be – " he searched for the perfect word. "Compatible."

Sam glanced at the door nervously, as if willing Dean to come bursting through it and whisk him away to safety.

"A pity your Father should decide to disappear off the radar with you at that exact moment," Mr Oliver continued. "Or we might have found each other a little sooner."

_Dean, please come get me…_ Sam found himself wishing. _Please…_ But he knew it wasn't going to happen. Not with Dean locked in the basement…

Mr Oliver frowned suddenly, turning abruptly towards Ian. "I told you to dispose of him!" his voice was so cold it could have sunk the Titanic.

Ian looked taken aback. How did he know? How could he possibly have seen…? "I – I d-did," he protested fairly unconvincingly. "I did dispose of him – "

Sam's eyes widened. "You hurt Dean?" he burst out, making as if to run towards the door. But Mr Oliver put a hand on his arm, and suddenly all he wanted to do was sit back down.

The dark glasses turned back towards Ian. "Come here," he ordered.

Ian swallowed hard before shuffling over towards the bed. "Sir, I swear…"

"Show me!" Mr Oliver demanded, and Ian made a slight choking noise, head snapping back for a second. When he raised his head and looked again towards Mr Oliver, his eyes were totally white.

Sam let out a startled whimper, but Mr Oliver merely squeezed his arm. "Don't be afraid, little one," he said smoothly. "It is less disturbing from the other side, you will see." He put a cold hand on Sam's cheek then, and the boy found himself unable to pull away. "Such a shame to erase such pretty eyes," he muttered softly, before turning back to Ian, who was still standing rigidly before him. "Show me," he repeated, voice like broken glass.

Ian let out a strangled little cry. "No!" he whimpered. "He's just a kid – please don't!"

Mr Oliver's mouth compressed into an angry line. "He's _here_?" he demanded. "You brought him _here_? _Now?_ At this critical time?"

"No," Ian protested. "I – I tried to – to dispose of him, but – but he found his way back here!"

"When I told you to 'dispose' of him, I had something a little more permanent in mind!"

"I know," Ian apologised. "I'm sorry. I just couldn't. He's just a _child_… You – you said I could – that I could keep him. That I could keep them both. That they'd be safe with me. I just wanted to help them! That's all I_ ever _wanted! You never said I'd have to – to…"

"Weak," Mr Oliver spat. "Weak and incompetent. Your sympathy for the boy will cost _both_ of you your lives!"

"No! No, I…"

"Leave us!" Mr Oliver waved an angry hand, and Ian turned jerkily, moving towards the door as if no longer under his own power, a puppet on a string. "Go. I will deal with you presently."

Ian's colourless eyes seemed to linger on Sam for a brief second.

And then he was gone.

And it was just Sam.

"Now," Mr Oliver said, voice softer as he turned back towards Sam, his hand returning to the boy's cheek. "Where were we?"

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

God, was it ever dark in here.

Dean could just about make out a rickety wooden handrail following the twisty stone steps down into the black depths of the basement, but beyond that, he couldn't see much further than a foot in front of him. Glancing longingly at the thin strip of light filtering underneath the basement door, he turned reluctantly back towards the dingy staircase.

He did _so_ not want to go down there.

But he had to.

There had to be another way out of here. There just had to be. He had to get to Sam. He had to get him away from that freak of nature in the silver Mercedes, and although for some reason he actually believed Ian when he said he wouldn't let the guy hurt Sam, that wasn't nearly assurance enough. Dean needed to be there himself. He needed to make sure _no-one­ _hurt Sammy.

He took a deep breath, one hand fumbling for the rough wooden handrail, the other tracing the quick-limed wall opposite, oddly cool beneath his fingers.

He was glad the stairs were solid stone. At least the only thing creaking was the handrail.

Carefully negotiating the one-eighty bend half way down the staircase, Dean blinked hard as the basement opened up before him, a tiny sliver of illumination filtering through a skylight set high up in the wall way over on the far side of the room.

He studied it for a second, but figured even if he could somehow get up there, no way he'd fit through. Even Sam couldn't have made that.

Sam. His stomach lurched when he thought about what might be happening to him upstairs, galvanising him into trying to find a way out of this place. Quickly.

What he could make out of his surroundings didn't provide Dean with any reason why Ian should be so adamant that he and Sam shouldn't come down here. Shelves, tools, hardware, sure, the normal stuff people kept in their basements, but nothing…

A grunt from the far corner of the room caused Dean to jump back about a foot, heart hammering so hard he thought he might have a coronary right there on the spot.

There was someone – something – else down here.

Dean glanced nervously back up the stairs, where he could still just about make out the light shining under the door, and it took all of his admittedly limited powers of self control to resist the urge to sprint straight back up there and start kicking the crap out of it some more.

Had to find a way out. Had to. No matter _what_ else was down here. Sammy was depending on him.

Gingerly, he followed the direction of the previous noise, creeping between the high shelves stacked with old paint tins, power tools, boxes of old discarded crap that Ian obviously hadn't the heart to throw away.

Stopping at the end of the row, he caught sight of an old camp bed lurking in the far corner beneath the skylight, what looked like a pile of old blankets piled on top.

Dean took another step forwards, eyeing the blankets suspiciously, half expecting a bunch of rats to come scurrying out at any minute. That would be just his luck. God, he hated rats.

But there were no rats, no other noises, and so Dean took another step towards the bed, then another, reaching out a trembling hand towards the blankets…

…Just as they moved.

Snatching back his hand and stifling a yell, it took Dean's brain a couple of seconds to register what he was seeing.

That wasn't a pile of blankets: there was someone lying on the bed.

Although their top half was in shadow, Dean could see filthy bare feet sticking out from under the bottom of the blanket. Another grunt, and the figure turned restlessly, a jangling noise drawing Dean's attention to the chain looped around the bottom of the bed, attached securely at the other end to a manacle which was shackled to the figure's ankle.

Dean took another step closer, from the heaviness of the person's breathing pretty sure they were well out of it.

He could see that the figure lay on its side now, face to the wall, one arm stretched out backwards towards Dean, awkward and at an odd angle. Another manacle was fastened securely around the red-raw wrist, this one attached to a chain which disappeared right into the wall above the bed.

The sleeper looked decidedly uncomfortable, another grunt issuing, followed by what sounded like a string of curses muttered through a sleep-addled haze.

Again, Dean resisted the urge to turn tail and run like hell, that old adage his Dad had taught him, 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend', rolling around in the back of his head.

He reached out to touch the sleeping figure's arm, almost afraid of what would happen should they awaken, but completely unable to stop himself. This was important. But he wasn't sure why.

Carefully, he laid a hand on the muscular shoulder, pulling slightly in an attempt to get a better look at the sleeper's face, still obscured by shadow.

"Sammy!"

Dean tried to jump backwards as the manacled hand shot up and made a grab for his t-shirt, pulling him right up against the bed so that he had to kneel on the mattress just to stay upright.

As he grabbed at the rough hand clutching his shirt, his voice caught in his throat as he found himself staring into a pair of sightless white eyes.

"Dad?"

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now even I think that's a nasty cliffie.

Stay tuned for the 'Oh, _that's_ what's going on!' chapter... Coming soon...


	12. Chapter 11

**A/N:** Are you sitting comfortably? Then we'll begin... Congratulations on having made it to the long, long, _long_ exposition chapter. Don't worry, if you make it through this, there are only a couple more chapters to go. You've all done very well. A packet of M&Ms to each and every one of you... Try to stay awake at the back of the class!

**Thanks:** To everyone who's reviewed so far, and a special thanks to IheartPadalecki for reminding me of something I'd forgotten. I had a very long checklist of things to include in this chapter, but one little thing slipped through the net...which she picked up without even having read it.

**Disclaimer:** It never hurts to disclaim. And I disclaim everything, but will point out that all opinions expressed in this chapter are probably my own. Don't flame me. I'm a tolerant kinda gal.

**Apologies:** I suspect a lot of you aren't going to like what happens to Uncle Ian here, but decided to stick to my original plan for him rather than follow some of your many wonderful (and often graphically violent) suggestions of what to do with him...

_**Chapter Eleven**_

"I – I'm not scared of you," Sam stammered, trying to pull away from Mr Oliver, but completely unable to move.

"That's good," Mr Oliver said, touching Sam's hair thoughtfully. "Have to do something about this," he muttered, more to himself than Sam. Smiling, he continued, "I don't want you to be afraid. I want you to be happy. Don't you want to be happy, Sam?"

Sam thought about that for a second. "I guess," he replied uncertainly.

"Good," Mr Oliver smiled, back to stroking Sam's cheek as if he were some helpless puppy he'd found in the gutter. "Everyone wants to be happy, Sam. The world would be so much better if everyone could just have their greatest wish come true."

Sam just looked up at him, wondering where Ian had gone and what was happening to Dean.

"What's your greatest wish, Sam?" Mr Oliver asked then. "What would make you truly happy?"

Sam shrugged, foot banging against the side of the bed as it swung backwards and forwards nervously.

"This house?" Mr Oliver asked. "This life? A parent who loves you for yourself, not for what you can do for him?"

Sam frowned at that. "My Daddy loves me for myself," he protested, although he wasn't sure how true that was.

"And you brother?" Mr Oliver continued, fingers moving down over Sam's jaw, tipping his face up towards him. "Do you think you father loves him?"

Sam didn't answer right away. Had he been asked that question yesterday, he wouldn't even have needed time to think about it. But now…knowing what he knew…

Mr Oliver nodded sadly, as if looking right inside Sam's head. "If a man truly loved his son, Sam, would he treat him the way your father has treated your brother?"

Sam frowned. "How do you know – ?"

"Would he yell at him? Scold him? _Beat_ him?"

Sam closed his eyes. _Dean, please come get me…_

"Do you want your brother, Sam?" Mr Oliver asked, Sam's eyes widening in surprise as the man once again seemed to see straight inside his head… straight inside his heart. "Is that what you want? More than anything? Because he takes care of you, protects you. Takes the pain so that you don't have to. You and him against the world, right Sam? You and him against your father?" Sam tried to turn away then, not wanting to listen any more, but Mr Oliver kept a firm grip on his chin, forcing him to continue looking up at him. "That's what you want most, isn't it, Sam?" he said. "You and your brother. And a big house like this. And a parent who'll love you. A parent who'll never hurt you – either of you. That's what you want, isn't it Sam? That's _all_ you want."

Mr Oliver had both hands on Sam's face now, one on either cheek, forcing him to look up into the darkness where his eyes remained anonymous behind the darkened glasses. "You can _still_ have it all, Sam," he continued. "You just need to want it. You just need to desire it. You just need to _need_ it enough… And then your greatest wish can become a reality. Do you want it, Sam? Do you want your greatest wish to come true?"

Sam looked up into the darkness where Mr Oliver's eyes should have been and said in a small voice, "Yes. Yes I want it."

"Good," Mr Oliver said. "Then it will all be yours." He stroked Sam's cheek again, thoughtfully, before adding, "As soon as you prove it to me…"

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Dad? Dad!" Dean tried to loosen his father's grip on his shirt, the unseeing white eyes looking straight through him as anguish almost unbearable overshadowed his father's dark features.

"Sammy!" he yelled. "Sammy!" as if that was all he could see.

"Dad!" Dean yelped as Dad's other hand suddenly made a grab for his throat.

"Where is he?" Dad demanded, shaking the boy so hard that Dean actually saw stars, something he thought only happened in cartoons. "Where's my son?"

"I'm right here, Dad!" Dean choked, clawing at the big hand clamped around his neck. "Dad! Dad, it's Dean! It's Dean, Dad, I'm right here!"

"Sammy!" Dad screamed again. "Where's my son?"

"Dad?" Dean felt the colour begin to drain from the world, the sounds becoming hollow and far away, as if he'd fallen down a deep well and didn't have the strength to pull himself back out. "Dad," he whispered weakly. "Dad, it's Dean…"

Then it stopped. Dad stopped shaking him, and the grip around his throat loosened.

Dean gulped in some badly-needed air, hardly daring to look at his father. "Dad?" he asked tentatively, keeping himself at arm's length just in case. "That you?"

Dad's eyes were closed, and he was swaying, almost as if he was struggling to stay upright.

"Dad?"

This time, the hand grabbed the back of Dean's neck, and when John Winchester opened his eyes, they were their usual inscrutable dark brown. "Dean?" he whispered, actually looking at his son for the first time. His face was pale, lips cracked and parched, the growth of beard on his chin suggesting he'd been here a while. "Am I dreaming?" he asked, his voice a broken whisper.

Dean shook his head, cursing the fact that a tear chose that moment to sneak past his defences and slide down his cheek. "You're not dreaming," he said. "Dad, I'm right here."

Dad's grip on the back of Dean's neck tightened, and he pulled his son towards him gently. "Good boy," he whispered, rough lips gently brushing Dean's forehead. "I knew you'd find me."

Dean gulped down a month's worth of tears, trying to look strong for his Dad, trying not to let him down. "Dad, how long have you been here?" he asked.

Dad frowned then, not really hearing Dean's question, confused mind focussing on something else. "Sammy," he said the name softly. "Dean, where's Sammy?"

Dean glanced behind him, back up the stairs, trying to think of a way to tell his Dad what had happened to his younger son.

But he never got the chance.

Eyes suddenly rolling back in his head, Dad started to sway again, one hand gripping Dean's shoulder while the other continued to hold on to his neck. "Find Sammy, Dean," he gasped, breathing becoming laboured. "Protect him. Protect Sammy. You hear me son? Protect Sammy. Protect…" And then he was falling back against the bed, pulling Dean along with him, hands still holding him fast.

"Dad?" Dean whispered, not daring to move for a second. When his father didn't respond, Dean pressed his ear against Dad's chest, listening intently for a heartbeat. For one agonising moment, he heard nothing but the hammering of his own heart, but then came the strong 'bump-bumping' which told him that, though unconscious, his Dad was at least alive.

Dean let out a long, ragged breath of relief, pushing himself up from his father's prone form and disentangling himself from his big hands and the chains keeping him restrained.

For a long moment, Dean just sat on the edge of the bed, looking at his father's inert body, watching his chest rise and fall. Carefully, he curled his fingers around his Dad's hand, feeling the warmth of him radiate up his arm.

And he smiled then.

Despite the dire circumstances. Despite the fact that Sam was God-knows-where having God-knows-what done to him, Dean smiled.

Because Dad was here. So everything was going to be alright.

But, as with most things in Dean's short life, his moment of happiness was short lived and his smile soon faded when he heard the unmistakeable sound of a key rattling in the padlock securing the door above his head.

Dean squinted upwards into the darkness as the basement door began to creak open. "Dad?" he whispered, shaking his father's unconscious form urgently, eyes never leaving the widening strip of light at the top of the stairs. "Dad, you need to wake up now. Dad?" But Dad didn't stir, and Dean had to fight a sudden wave of panic that seemed to have started in his toes and was rapidly making its way up his body.

A dark silhouette had appeared on the landing at the top of the stairs, back-lit by the light flooding in from the hallway beyond. The door creaked again, the light fading as it was pushed to, and Dean heard the key grinding once more in the padlock.

Which meant, Dean quickly realised, that whoever was standing at the top of the stairs was now locked in down here too.

Heavy footfalls alerted Dean to the fact that the interloper was descending the stairs, but the steps sounded irregular and jerky, almost as if the person was being forced down against their will.

Letting go of Dad's hand, Dean scooted behind the nearest row of shelving, grabbing the heaviest blunt instrument he could find – in this case a half-empty tin of livid green paint.

The figure had reached the bottom of the stairs now, and Dean could see how stiffly he moved, legs barely bending, and although Dean would never have admitted to having seen _The Wizard of Oz_, he couldn't help thinking of the Tin Man, or maybe one of those bad robot-dancing guys you saw in the park sometimes.

The dark figure turned then, moving jerkily towards where Dad was lying unconscious and unprotected, finally coming to a halt mere inches from where Dean was hiding.

Steeling himself, Dean looked up, knowing deep down what he was going to see, but scared of seeing it all the same.

Ian stood there, gazing at nothing through glazed white eyes.

Fingers tightening on the paint tin, Dean charged, running at Ian full tilt. Determined the guy wasn't going to get the chance to do _anything_ to his Dad, he swung the tin with all his might, aiming it squarely at the guy's head.

But it never made it to its target, Ian suddenly reaching out and grabbing at Dean's wrist before his makeshift weapon could connect, easily turning the object away as he looked down into Dean's frightened hazel eyes.

With hazel eyes of his own.

"Dean?" he said, voice sounding as confused and distant as Dad's had. "What are you doing?"

The paint tin landed with a metallic thud against the concrete floor, and Dean stopped dead, looking back up at Ian with a stunned expression on his face. "You – you're – " he stammered. " – Locked in the basement," he managed lamely, trying to pull his wrist free without a whole lot of success.

Ian looked about himself at that, face contorting into an angry grimace. "Dammit," he swore, unconsciously tightening his grip on Dean's wrist. "Puppet on a goddamn string…"

Dean sucked a pained gasp in through gritted teeth, but refused to give Ian the satisfaction of his crying out in pain.

Which was when Ian looked down, as if only just remembering Dean was there. "Uh," he stammered. "Sorry," and let the boy go.

Dean just looked up at him, rubbing at his wrist, head tilted slightly to one side as if trying to figure out what just happened.

Ian looked right back at him.

Dean frowned. "So I found my Dad," he said, deciding that would be a good thing to casually drop into the conversation. He nodded to where his father lay sprawled unconscious on the bed. "He was here all the time, huh?"

Ian never took his eyes off Dean. "Pretty much," he admitted shortly.

"So…" Dean paused, unsure of what was supposed to happen next. "Evil Mercedes guy," he continued. "He send you down here to – to – " he tried to remember the word the man had used. "To 'dispose' of me now?"

Ian frowned, finally looking away from Dean and glancing behind him, back up the stairs to the locked door. "I guess not," he said awkwardly. "I'm pretty sure I didn't lock myself in here. So I'm guessing I might actually be in about as much trouble as you and your Dad."

Dean's eyes narrowed. "Why?" he asked carefully. "What did _you_ do to piss him off?"

Ian sighed, scratching helplessly at his head. "I was supposed to kill you, remember?"

"Oh," Dean looked down at his feet, shuffling them a little on the concrete floor. "Well. Y'know. Thanks," he said. "For not," he added. "Killing me I mean."

"You're welcome," Ian replied, sounding just as uncertain of Dean as Dean was of him.

"Don't think this means I trust you," Dean added, eyes narrowing still further. "'Cause I don't."

"Noted," Ian replied, uncomfortably shifting his weight from foot to foot as if _he_ didn't know what he was supposed to do now any more than Dean did.

Dean nodded, the reality of Ian's situation suddenly bringing with it a much bigger problem. His eyes snapped back to Ian instantly. "Sam!" he burst out. "You said you wouldn't let that guy hurt Sam! But if you're down here, then he's got Sam by himself, and he could – he could – " the words were too much for Dean to even contemplate, much less say out loud, and before he knew what he was doing, he was charging past Ian towards the stairs as fast as he legs would get him there.

Taking the first three steps in one leap, his upward momentum was curtailed for the second time that day by Ian grabbing hold of him and yanking him off his feet.

"Will you stop doing that?" Dean snapped, once again trying to land a kick that would get Ian to put him down.

"Wait!" Ian urged. "Dean, wait!"

"No!" Dean spat. "I've got to get to Sam… Dad said… I've got to…"

"Wait!" Ian dropped him then, just as the kid managed to elbow him in the stomach. He breathed out heavily, but managed to keep his arms wrapped tightly around Dean's chest, pinning his arms to his sides in an attempt to avoid any further outbreaks of needless violence, while pulling him close and hanging on to him tightly, as if he were a tantruming three-year-old.

"Dean," he said calmly, right in the boy's ear as he continued his futile struggle to free himself. "Just stop for a minute."

"Get off!" Dean insisted, always contrary. "I've got to get to Sam!"

"Dean, Sam'll be here soon," Ian assured him, his words apparently having the desired effect on Dean as the kid stopped trying to kick him like a football for a second.

"Why?" he demanded, turning slightly to better get a look at Ian's eyes. Still hazel. Which was a good thing.

"He has to come down here," Ian explained. "Mr Oliver – the Mercedes guy – won't hurt him. I swear to you, Dean, he won't hurt him."

Dean made another attempt at pulling away, but Ian held him fast. "I don't believe you," he stated. "Why should I believe anything you say? Why would Sam be coming down here?"

Ian leaned his forehead against the side of Dean's temple defeatedly. "For us," he said simply. "Sam has to come here for us." He sighed deeply, and Dean felt the vibration in his bones. "All we can do is wait, Dean. There's no way out of here but through that door, and the only time that's going to open is when they're coming _in_. All we can do is wait."

He let Dean go then, but rather than haring off up the stairs as Ian half expected him to, the boy just took a breath and turned back to face him, trying to maintain that well-worn Not Scared face when he was obviously scared to death.

"What – what do you mean?" he asked tentatively, eyes widened somewhere between mistrust and panic.

"I think you know, Dean," Ian replied calmly.

Dean just looked at him for a second. "He's going to take Sam over, right?" he hazarded at length, the too-familiar dread gnawing at his insides. "Make his eyes go all white like yours. Like Dad's."

Ian shook his head. "No," he said. "Not like me. What you saw – that's a sign that he's in control, yes. But it's temporary. It just happens when he needs to use us. When you saw me like that, it was when he was wanting to see what effect Sam's nightmares were having on him. You saw you saw your Dad like that too?"

Dean nodded. "Just now," he confirmed. "But he was screaming for Sammy, which didn't make sense…"

"I think when I was upstairs with Sam," Ian explained. "He thought about you. Thought about you being down here. I think that's how Mr Oliver first knew I'd not killed you, when he sensed that from Sam. That's when he turned on me, took me, looked into my head, looked through my eyes and saw that you were still alive. He knew your Dad was down here, so he must have used him like he used me – looked through his eyes to see if you were here, if you were alive; confirm his suspicions."

"Which is why you didn't want Sam to see me," suddenly Dean understood why Ian had been so adamant that he shouldn't see his brother when he first got back here. "You were worried this Oliver dude would see I was alive through him."

Ian nodded. "I knew Sam could put you in danger – whether he knew it or not."

"But why was Dad screaming for Sammy if he was being possessed by Oliver?" Dean asked, frowning.

"It's not possession, exactly," Ian tried to explain. "More like sensory extension…"

Dean raised an eyebrow. "Sensory…?"

"He sees what I see; hears what I hear. But he's rarely completely in control."

"'Half-white eyes'," Dean muttered, remembering Sam's words from yesterday. Ian frowned, not understanding. "That's how Sam described you," Dean explained. "When he was talking crazy after you made him have those nightmares…"

"I didn't make him have the nightmares," Ian said, not protesting his innocence, just stating fact. "That was _him_. He used me as a – a conduit, I guess. A way of extending his reach so that he could touch Sam's mind without being physically present. That's something else he can use me for. Extending the range of his own power. I guess Sam was still feeling the after-effects of that presence in his mind when he used those words." His face became grave, pained, a hint of betrayal in his eyes. "That's all I am to Oliver," he said, sitting down heavily on the bottom stair. "A goddamn extension lead. God, why didn't I see it before…?"

"That's how he pushed me in the pool?" Dean broke in on the man's self-pity. "That's how he kept me under?"

Ian nodded. "I saw you go in," he said, eyes minutely examining the concrete beneath his feet rather than make eye contact with Dean. "But he knew what I was thinking. Knew he had to control me then, or I would have – "

"What were you thinking?" Dean interrupted, moving a step closer.

Ian looked up at him then, blinking hard. "That I couldn't let you die," he admitted. "That had never been part of the plan. At least, the plan he shared with me."

Dean didn't have a response to that, the growing hatred he'd been feeling for this guy over the last few days suddenly hitting a brick wall. Could that be true? Had Ian been trying to _protect_ him?

Ian shrugged. "I couldn't move my body," he said. "Couldn't use my voice. It was the first time he'd taken complete control of me, and I didn't know what to do at first – I hadn't even realised he _could_ take complete control of me. So I used the only thing I had left. My mind. And Sam."

Dean raised an eyebrow. "Sam?"

"Made him hear you yelling for him," Ian explained. "So that he'd find you in the pool and pull you out. I knew Mr Oliver would never let any harm come to him. I knew he'd have to let you go, or Sam would have drowned trying to save you."

Dean frowned. "How did you 'make' Sam hear me calling him?" he asked suspiciously.

Ian sighed, running a hand through his hair. "He doesn't choose us at random," he said. "He chooses us because we have – talents – he can use."

Dean wasn't sure why, but he suddenly found himself perching on the step next to Ian. Glancing at him sideways, he asked, "You have a super power?"

Ian laughed hollowly. "Hardly," he replied. Then, looking squarely at Dean, he added, "It's called Hyper-Suggestivity."

Dean's face remained completely blank. "Hyper…?"

"Suggestivity," Ian repeated. "It means I can make people hear things they're not really hearing; see things they're not really seeing; remember things that never happened. Believe things that aren't true."

Dean's brows rose, and he jumped up off the step as if shot. "The mall!" he burst out. "That's what you did to me at the mall!"

Ian nodded apologetically. "I couldn't kill you," he said. "And I knew you'd never let me take Sam. So…"

"You planned the whole thing!" Dean couldn't believe he'd been that stupid. "Me thinking I could get Sam to Pastor Jim. You planned that – to make me think I could end up getting Sammy hurt – that I was a danger to him!"

Ian nodded again. He put a hand against Dean's cheek, and was more than surprised when Dean didn't pull away. "I'm sorry, Dean," he muttered, shaking his head. "It was the only way I could think of. The only way to save your life."

"I heard my Dad," Dean asserted, glancing across at his father. "I heard him _ordering_ me to – to let Sam go with you – with him. I thought you were…" he trailed off, looking up at Ian with wide, confused eyes, before turning his attention back to his father.

Ian followed the direction of Dean's gaze, sadly. "That's why he's still here," he explained. "That's why Oliver needed to keep him alive."

Dean frowned again, resuming his seat next to Ian. "Why?" he asked tentatively.

Ian shrugged. "One of the – uh – benefits of working for Oliver. He enhances the abilities you already have by occasionally letting you use _his_ power too. He made me able to see into people thoughts, see their emotions, their memories. Your Dad's memories. Episodes from his past. I used his memories to – to make you think that…"

Dean was staring off into the middle distance thoughtfully. "Dad never tried to drown me, did he?"

Ian shook his head. "No," he said simply.

Dean looked up at him, voice faltering. "But I remember – "

"You remember being cold and wet," Ian said. "You remember your Dad pulling you out of the bathtub and telling you how sorry he was."

Dean shuddered slightly at the thought of Ian's being able to see into his head like that.

"Your Dad's memory of the same event is one of the strongest he has from the time after your Mom died," Ian continued. "It just jumped out at me. That's why I used it."

Dean wasn't sure he wanted to know the answer to his next question, but he pressed on regardless. "So what really happened?"

Ian sighed, very gently pushing a strand of hair out of Dean's eyes. "He found you like that," he explained. "Under the water."

Dean didn't get it. "What was I doing?" he asked.

Ian looked away, as if ashamed at having trespassed on such a painful moment in John Winchester's life, and even more ashamed at betraying his pain to the man's son. "When he pulled you out," he explained. "When he asked you what you were doing… It was the first time you'd really said much of anything after the fire. And you – you told him you were looking for your Mom."

Now Dean looked really confused. "In the tub?" he asked.

Ian shook his head. "No," he said. "You told him that you thought if you stopped breathing you'd go to the place where your Mom had gone, and you'd be able to see her again."

Dean didn't move, just held Ian's gaze evenly. He swallowed, trying to stop his voice from trembling. "I – I tried to drown myself?"

Ian shrugged. "I don't know if you knew that's what you were doing," he replied. "I'm not sure what a four-year-old's concept of life and death would be…"

Dean nodded carefully, suddenly feeling brittle, like he might break if he moved too quickly. "And that's when he told me he was sorry? That part really happened?"

Ian nodded.

Dean thought about that for a minute. "So you saw all that inside Dad's head? In _my_ head?"

Ian nodded again.

"And you used that to persuade me and Sammy that Dad was a little – you know – nuts?"

Ian continued nodding.

"Wow," Dean whistled. "That's some super power you got there."

Ian shrugged again. "It has its uses," he said. He smiled lopsidedly then. "Like making people see things. That can come in real handy."

Dean raised an eyebrow, glad to change the subject. God, he must have been a dorky four-year-old… "Oh yeah?" he said. "What kind of things."

Ian smiled a crooked smile. "Your Dad's car," he said, almost as if he was pulling a rabbit out of a magician's hat.

Dean's eyes narrowed. "Dude, I _saw_ that car…" he insisted.

Ian nodded. "Yes, you did."

Dean seemed taken aback by the admission. "I – did?" he stumbled.

"Yes," Ian confirmed. "Twice."

"Huh?" Dean said. "No, I only saw it the one time. When I came back with Sam, it was gone…"

"No," Ian corrected.

"Yes," Dean insisted. "Where did you move it? _How_ did you move it? I know you were in the house…"

"I didn't move it," Ian said. "It's still there. Where you saw it."

Dean looked even more confused. "No way," he said. "It was _gone_, dude! I know the difference between a Chevy and a Ford – "

"Yes you do," Ian said. "And I saw that you did. So when you and Sam came back to the shed and I showed you your Dad's Chevy, you saw a rusty old Ford."

"No way!" Dean whispered breathlessly. "That was Dad's Impala?"

"Exactly where you saw it the first time."

"But you made me think I was looking at a Ford?" Ian grinned lopsidedly, like a magician revealing his secrets, and Dean just whistled. "Man, you must really like it inside my head to keep going back in there!"

Ian smiled. "Always did have a thing for big empty spaces."

Dean surprised Ian then by laughing. A real laugh, the first Ian had heard from the kid. "That's just the kind of thing Sam would say," he observed, his smile fading as his thoughts drifted back to Sam. He glanced involuntarily up at the ceiling, wondering what was going on up there.

Ian sighed, putting a hand on Dean's shoulder. "Don't forget," he said. "I've been in Sam's head too."

Dean faltered again, almost not asking, but unable to help himself. "And what's going on in there?" he asked. "What's in _his _head?"

Ian's face was serious now too. "This," he said shortly. "This house. This life. Normality. Family. School. College. Kids. I don't know. The American Dream, I guess."

Dean wasn't sure he understood completely. "So is that how you got us to come with you?" he asked. "By putting the whammy on us – convincing us you were our Uncle and could give us a better life? That life Sam wants so bad?" he held Ian's gaze then. "Because you're not our Uncle, are you?"

Ian smiled sadly, and Dean could see that this particular truth truly hurt him. "No," he said, not looking away. "I'm not your Uncle."

Dean nodded. _Knew it. Dammit, I knew it._ And he couldn't understand why the truth suddenly hurt _him_ too.

Blinking hard, he added, "So that's how you did it? That's how you got us here? That Hyper – Hyper thing?" Because somehow, that would make it easier…

Ian's sad smile never faltered. "No," he said. "No. I didn't need to do much of anything. You came with me because, deep down, you and Sam wanted what I was telling you to be true."

Dean shook his head. "Sam, maybe," he said. "He loves all that Apple Pie crap – "

"No," Ian said. "You wanted it too. You came just – almost – as willingly as Sam. I didn't have to do much at all. I just used your Dad's memories to convince you I was who I said I was – your Dad's code when I knocked on the door; things he remembered after the fire; things about your Mom. Neither of you took a whole lot of convincing."

Dean didn't know what to make of that. And he wasn't sure he really wanted to think too hard on it right now. It was _Sam_ who wanted all that stuff – Planet Normal. Not Dean. All Dean wanted was Dad and Sammy. That was enough for him. What did he need with a big house? What did he need with a – a…home?

Home. Just the word made him hurt deep inside.

Needed to change the subject now…

"And what about you?" Dean asked. "How do _you_ fit into all this?"

Ian traced his finger over the concrete step. "Mr Oliver?" he said. "He looks into us and sees what we want, what we need: our desires, our hopes, our dreams. The things we want most in life. And that's how he gets his power over us. Makes us think that he can give us what we want most in the whole world. Takes our deepest desires, and alters them. Changes what it is we think we want so badly. Makes us think that what _he_ wants is what _we_ want. Uses that to control us. To feed off us. To make us do his bidding."

Ian looked into Dean's eyes then, and could see that the boy understood what he was saying to some extent.

"And what did _you_ want?" Dean asked.

Again, that sad little smile. "I wanted to help kids in trouble," he said. "I wasn't lying about that. That's all I ever wanted." He looked away, back at the finger tracing invisible patterns in the concrete. "He showed me two little boys whose father had abandoned them; mistreated them; taken away their childhoods and filled their every waking moment with nightmares."

Dean didn't try to protest his Dad's innocence in all this. There was no point: Ian had been in Dad's head. He knew.

"And it was the same with Daniel and Jamie?"

Another sad little nod of the head. "That's how Mr Oliver found me initially," he said. "Through them. He'd been interested in Jamie for a while – like he's been interested in Sam for a while. I was their mother's attorney. She was a junkie – " he paused, catching Dean's eye. Sometimes he forgot he was talking to a kid when he was talking to Dean. "You know what that means?" When Dean nodded, he continued. "The State wanted to take her boys away – put them in Care."

Dean shuddered, vividly remembering that night he and Sammy had spent at the foster home.

"Oliver needed to get Jamie away from his Mom, but a foster home just wouldn't have worked for him – he needed better access than that. And that's when he noticed me. Saw what I could do and what I wanted. Persuaded me that I could use my – my gift – get the Courts to grant me temporary custody of the boys while their Mom cleaned herself up, got herself back together. And it worked." He looked away, back at the pattern his finger was tracing on the step. "And for a while, we were like a real family. They came to live here. Like they were my real kids. And it was – it was…" he broke off, shaking his head.

For some reason, Dean put his hand on Ian's then. Almost as if to show he understood. Which he did. Much more than Ian could ever know.

Ian looked back up at him then, smiling slightly before the memory could take his smile away again. "But then the time came. The time when Mr Oliver wanted – well, he wanted Jamie. By then, against all the odds, their Mom had actually straightened herself out and wanted them back. Oliver said I couldn't let that happen. Said I had to kill her. Said I had to kill Daniel."

"Why Daniel?" Dean asked.

"Too protective of Jamie," Ian replied bitterly. "Oliver said Jamie would never be his as long as Daniel was breathing."

Dean nodded, recognising a kindred spirit in Daniel. "But you couldn't kill them?" he said. "You let them go?"

Ian nodded. "I was supposed to do it when their Mom came to collect them," he explained. "But I couldn't. I got Jamie out. Got them all out. Helped them disappear…"

Dean got that. "So _your_ greatest wish…?"

Ian looked up at him. "Family," he said at length. "Kids. Someone to rattle around in this big expensive house besides me. What's the point in having all this stuff if I don't have anyone to share it with?"

Dean gave Ian that grin of his. "Okay," he said. "So my Dad did the whole 'birds and the bees' thing with me when I was, like, nine or something," he said. "I'm pretty sure it would be a hell of a lot easier if you just go out and find yourself a nice girl."

Ian smiled enigmatically at that. "Dean," he said awkwardly, looking away again for a second. "Would you know what I meant if I said I wasn't – uh – into girls?"

Dean held his gaze, seemingly unfazed. "So go find yourself a nice guy," he said, not missing a beat. "Plenty of kids out there could use a Dad – Dads," he corrected himself.

Ian raised an eyebrow, obviously not expecting a kid as brash as Dean to come out with a comment as enlightened as that. "I – " he stammered. "I don't know whether they'd let us…"

Dean rolled his eyes. "You're a lawyer, right?" he said. "_Make_ them let you!" He scratched his head thoughtfully. "There's enough evil stuff out there without inventing more." He glanced over at the unconscious form of his Dad then. "But me and Sam?" he said, looking back at Ian. "We're already spoken for."

Ian just stared at Dean for a long moment, a look of wonder on his face. "I thought Sam was supposed to be the smart one?" he said eventually.

Dean shrugged. "Smart's over-rated," he declared. "If you look good and drive a cool car, you'll do just fine."

Ian actually laughed at that. "Who told you that?" he asked.

Dean grinned slyly. "My Dad's friend Bobby," he replied. "I was getting annoyed because Sammy could do the Latin thing and I couldn't get the words."

Ian nodded. "Bobby sounds like a wise man," he observed.

"Damn straight," Dean insisted. He paused, gazing up at Ian for a minute, still trying to work him out. "So," he said slowly. "If you couldn't kill Daniel and his Mom, what made you think you'd be able to kill me?"

Ian rubbed at his hands uncomfortably. "That wasn't part of the deal at first," he said. "Oliver said – well, Oliver said I could keep you. Promised me I wouldn't have to hurt you. He just wanted Sam, and you'd be mine."

"And you would have just gone along pretending to be my Uncle?" Dean asked. "Just having to put the whammy on us every now and then if we stopped believing you?"

Ian nodded.

"So what went wrong?"

"That nightmare he gave Sam?" Ian said. "It was kind of a test. To see how Sam would react to – to certain situations. Identify his strengths; his weaknesses…"

"And I'm his weakness, huh?" Dean asked.

Ian shook his head, a serious expression on his face. "No," he said. "No, you're his strength. What Sam feels for you? What you feel for each other? Oliver knew he didn't stand a chance against it. Knew he'd never be able to – to use Sam as long as you were around. That's when he said I had to kill you. He'd got my head so turned around. I'd already resigned myself to having to kill your Dad. He'd 'helped' me see some of your Dad's memories a little differently to the reality – gave me a taste of my own medicine I guess. Like his trying to drown you. He convinced me that by killing him, I'd be saving you…"

"Saving me from what?" Dean asked, not quite understanding.

Ian sighed. "From him," he said. "From your Dad. Dean, you have to understand Oliver's kind. They lie. About everything. And they use what's already in your head to convince you it's the truth. He – he convinced me your father was beating you – "

"_What!_" Dean was on his feet again, eyes flashing bloody murder and jaw set in indignant fury. "Dad's never – _never­_ – hit me! Even when I deserved it!"

"I know," Ian said. "I know that now. Since I saw into your memories. Your Dad might have screwed you guys up – and I wasn't kidding about how much therapy you're both going to need – but I could see he never hurt you. Not physically anyway. Not intentionally." Ian was struck by how differently Dean took this slur against their father than Sam had. Somehow, Sam had seemed a lot more willing to believe it.

Dean bit his lip, trying to rein in some of his anger. "So – so you decided not to kill me…"

"Tried to just get rid of you…"

"Like I said," Dean pointed out. "Bad penny."

"And that's when Oliver realised maybe I wasn't playing on his team any more," Ian continued. "Decided to make me part of Sam's 'initiation test', I guess. You too…"

Now they'd come round to it. What Dean really _needed_ to know, but really didn't _want_ to know…

"So what, exactly, does Oliver want with Sam?" he asked, dreading the answer.

Ian patted the stair next to him, motioning for Dean to sit back down. Dean acquiesced reluctantly. "You're not going to like this," he said.

"Yeah, I pretty much figured," Dean replied.

Ian took a deep breath. "Okay, so Mr Oliver. He doesn't have a physical form – "

"Like a spirit?" Dean put in.

"Something like that," Ian agreed. "He's kind of a form of energy, pure power. He has a consciousness, but in our reality he has no physical dimension, no body," Ian paused to make sure Dean was following, which he certainly seemed to be. "So in our world, he has no real physical presence. He can affect the physical world – like when he pushed you into the pool – but he can only manifest for short periods of time, and only then when he's using someone like me as a conduit. Or when he's close to his power centre."

"Power…?"

"To stay in our reality," Ian explained. "He needs an anchor, a physical object in which to dwell, something to bind him to this world."

"And that can be anything?" Dean asked. "Like a Big Mac? Or a Barbie? Or…"

"It can be something inanimate like that," Ian agreed, cutting Dean off before his imagination got too out of control. "Although he tends to go for religious artefacts – statues, crucifixes, that kind of thing."

"Why?" Dean asked.

Ian shrugged. "Satisfying his inner drama queen maybe?" he hazarded. "But when he's occupying an inanimate object, he's limited in what he can do in our world."

That knot of fear started tightening in Dean's chest again. "And he can do more if he's inside a – a person?" he asked slowly. "A person like Sam?"

Ian nodded. "It's supposed to be a voluntary joining," he said. "At least, that's how he sold it to me. He said Sam would be his 'vessel', but he'd still be Sam, still be a kid. My kid. That's what he said. That's what he promised me."

"A family?" Dean was beginning to understand Ian now. Dean was beginning to understand him totally.

Ian continued to nod. "But I began to realise he was lying when I first looked into your memories and realised your Dad never hurt you. Oliver had changed my perception of what your Dad remembered just like _I_ changed your perception of what _you_ remembered. I don't know how he did it. All I know is I only got _his_ version of the truth, not your Dad's. I didn't see the truth until I saw your memories, and by then it was too late. You were already here. Your Dad was already here."

"How did you get my Dad?" Dean asked, figuring Ian was the next best source seeing as Dad was in no position to tell him.

Ian shrugged. "Same way I got you," he said. "He got a phone call from his friend Jim Murphy. Said you'd called to tell him you were going to stay with your Uncle in Kansas – gave him this address."

Dean's eyes narrowed. "But Pastor Jim never called him, right?" he said. "That was you?"

Ian nodded. "I'd been watching your Dad for a few days. Knew where he was staying. Knew how to contact him there. Of course, he knew you guys didn't have an Uncle and came straight here, like a bat out of hell…"

"Right into the trap you'd set for him?"

Ian nodded. "When he got here, he found the house conveniently empty… All he heard was the sound of his kids screaming for him from the basement."

Dean's newfound tolerance of Ian began to ebb a little at that revelation. "And once you got him down here…?"

Ian read the unasked question haunting Dean's eyes. "He's alright," he reassured the boy. "Just sleeping. I don't need him to be conscious to see into his head. He's been this way since he got here."

"Can you wake him up?" Dean asked hopefully.

Ian shook his head. "I'm not the one keeping him unconscious," he replied.

Dean's eyes flitted to his father, disappointment obvious on his face. Then, as if pulling himself out from under the mountain of fear threatening to suffocate him, he asked, "How did this Oliver dude get his sights set on Sam anyway?"

"A teacher at a school you went to once," he explained. "She's kind of a scout for Oliver. Noticed Sam a couple of years ago."

Dean frowned. "What's so special about Sam?" he asked.

Ian just looked at him, opened his mouth as if to speak, then closed it again and shrugged.

Dean wasn't sure he liked the look of that. "So why the urgency now?" he persevered. "Why come for Sam now?"

Ian rubbed at his chin. "Oliver's current host – the guy in the expensive suit?"

Dean nodded.

"Found out he was sick a few months ago."

"So he needs a new body?"

"Yeah," Ian confirmed. "It was pretty urgent then, when he tried to get his hands on Jamie. But it became downright dire a week ago."

Dean frowned. "What happened a week ago?" he asked.

"He died."

Dean's eyebrows disappeared into his hair. "He – what?" he stammered.

"Oliver's host _died_ a week ago," Ian reiterated.

"Wait a second…" Dean tried to figure this out. "Then how's he walking – talking – how…?"

"You know what a life support machine does?" Ian asked.

Dean nodded. "When someone's real sick," he answered, "and their body's not working any more, they get hooked up to a life support machine and it keeps them breathing. Keeps their heart beating."

"That's right," Ian agreed. "Even when their brain is no longer capable of doing that for them. Well that's what Oliver is doing for his current host."

Dean had seen dead people before. And he'd seen possessed people. But he'd never seen a possessed dead guy. "Eeeew…" he muttered, wrinkling his nose.

"Yeah," Ian agreed. "So you can see why the urgency once he lost Jamie. Mr Oliver can't keep the guy ticking over forever."

"Yeah," Dean pointed out. "'Cause he's gonna start to stink pretty soon…"

"So when we picked up your Dad's trail again," Ian continued. "When we found out you were in Missouri, Oliver knew it had to be Sam."

Dean nodded thoughtfully, eyes drifting once again to his father. "I'm going to lose him, aren't I?" he said quietly, gaze returning to Ian. "Sam. I'm going to lose him."

Ian bit his lip. Dean was a tough little kid, he knew that. He'd seen it. But he wondered how much he'd be able to handle before the reality of it all became _too_ much.

He sighed, putting a hand on Dean's shoulder and meeting his frightened gaze evenly. "Yes," he said honestly, aching at the way Dean flinched at the word. "Unless Sam puts up a fight. Unless we help Sam put up a fight."

Dean looked hopeful at this. "You'll help?" he asked. "We can help him?"

Ian smiled encouragingly. "We can try," he said. "You're Sam's strength, remember? No way he'd let anything happen to you…"

Dean looked nervous at that. "Why?" he asked cautiously. "What – what's going to happen?"

Ian opened his mouth as if to answer, just as a key turned in the padlock upstairs.

Dean and Ian both turned their attention upwards, as the crack of light on the landing began to widen.

Ian's grip on Dean's shoulder tightened.

"I think we're about to find out."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hope that wasn't too painful! And that you're all still awake. Don't worry, I'll see about trying to kill everyone next chapter...

Reviews still very much appreciated... And now that I've topped my original dream total of 100, I'm going to be greedy and see if I can make 200! (Although I might have to add a few chapters to get there, so maybe not...!)


	13. Chapter 12

**A/N:** Alrighty then, here it is, the big - well, moderately-sized - finish. Although there's another chapter to come after this. Again, thanks so much to everyone reading and everyone reviewing. I'm starting to tear up just thinking about it...

**Disclaimer:** Okay, I disclaim already...

**Spoiler: **Tiny spoilerette for Devil's Trap, but if you've not seen it, you won't notice it... I love the last 20 minutes of that episode so damn much I just couldn't resist...

**--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------**

_**Chapter Twelve**_

Sam could hear words. Lots of words. But he couldn't make out what they were saying. All blurred together; rolled into a ball; background noise; muzak. A buzz in his head.

_Dad. Brother. Hurt him._

Odd words he understood.

_Hurt him. Hurt him._

_Dad._

_Hurt him._

_Just the two of you…_

It made some kind of sense somehow. All jumbled up in his head, but it made some kind of sense.

_He lied to you._

Grown ups lied.

Grown ups lied all the time.

Dad had lied. Had told Sam he loved him. Had told Sam he loved Dean. But he didn't really love Dean. He _couldn't _really love Dean, because all the time he'd been hurting him. In whose twisted mind could that be love?

And Sam remembered bruises now. Marks on Dean. He didn't know why he'd not remembered them before. But now he did.

Dad had hurt Dean. Dad had hurt Dean instead of hurting Sam.

And he'd lied.

Just like Ian.

Ian had lied too. He wasn't their Uncle. He was a selfish man who wanted a son, and he'd chosen Sam because he was easier. Easier than Dean. Dean hadn't fallen for it. Hadn't believed it.

So Ian had tried to hurt Dean too. Tried to drown him in the pool. Tried to ditch him at the mall. Tried to get rid of him so that he could have Sam all to himself.

Mr Oliver had shown him all of this.

Mr Oliver had shown him everything.

Because Mr Oliver was the one grown up who would never lie to Sam. Mr Oliver was his friend. Mr Oliver wanted to help. Mr Oliver wanted to help Sam get everything he ever wanted.

And he almost had it. He was so close.

He just needed to get rid of Ian – because if he didn't get rid of Ian, Ian would get rid of Dean. And Sam couldn't have that.

Dean was what Sam wanted most, after all.

But then there was Dad.

Dad was here. Mr Oliver had told him. Ian had lured Dad here – was keeping him prisoner – because Ian wanted Sam all to himself. Once he was done pillaging Dad's memories in order to convince Sam he was who he said he was, then Ian was going to kill him. Ian was going to kill Dad.

And Sam was oddly okay with that.

Because Dad also got in the way of what Sam wanted most.

Sam was never going to be _ordinary_ as long as Dad was around. And Dean was never going to be just Sam's as long as Dad was around. Because no matter what Dad had done to Dean, Dean still worshipped the ground Dad walked on.

And Sam didn't want to share.

Sam didn't want to share Dean with Dad.

So Dad had to go too.

Get rid of Ian. Get rid of Dad.

Simple.

Home. Normality. Dean.

Everything Sam ever wanted.

It was so simple, he couldn't fathom why it hadn't occurred to him before.

He saw the padlock come open in front of him. Saw the darkness struggling to escape from within. Saw the stone stairs leading down, down, down.

Felt a push.

Just a little one.

In the small of his back.

_Hurt him. Hurt him._

_Make him stop forever._

Felt something cold and metallic in his hand.

_Hurt him. Hurt him._

_Everything you ever wanted._

_I'll make it yours._

_You just have to prove you want it._

_Prove it. Prove it._

This house.

_Home._

Family.

_Dean._

_You just have to prove it._

Sam drew his hand behind his back and began to descend the stairs slowly.

Mr Oliver followed, smiling. "Good boy, Sam."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Sam? Sam!" Dean tried to run towards the familiar figure descending the steps, more relieved to see his kid brother in one piece than he could ever put into words. But Ian caught his arm, holding him back. "Hey – "

"Don't," Ian said, eyes darting to the figure behind the little boy on the stairs.

Dean followed his gaze, catching sight of him for the first time, immaculate silver-grey suit and those ever-present dark glasses, like shutters over his soul.

_No way that guy will be able to see anything down here with those things on, _Dean thought. But then he remembered. _No way that guy will ever see anything again. Being dead and all._

"Sam?" Dean repeated the name quietly, looking down at his little brother as the boy descended the final stair.

Sam looked up at him then, a vacant expression on his face, but eyes, thankfully, a long way from white.

Dean allowed himself a little sigh of relief at that, the thought of Sam with those sightless white eyes chilling him to the bone. He couldn't let something like that happen to his baby brother. Not ever.

"Sammy?" Dean took another step towards Sam, shrugging off Ian's restraining hand obstinately. "You okay squirt?"

He couldn't see any visible signs of mistreatment on the kid. But he frowned when he noticed the boy's hand obviously hidden behind his back. "Sam?" he asked cautiously. "Whatcha got there?"

Sam didn't answer, continuing to gaze up at him blankly, a disturbingly blissful look on his face that unaccountably made Dean's flesh crawl.

"What did you do to him?" Dean was surprised to hear Ian demanding of Mr Oliver, himself taking a step closer to the little boy.

Oliver's upper lip curled into a crooked sneer. "You know," he said. "You knew all along. And you could have been a part of it if you weren't so – " he paused, as if for dramatic effect. " – Squeamish."

Dean rolled his eyes at the guy, scowling at him as he stopped two steps back up the staircase, enabling him to tower over his little brother. "I see what you mean by 'drama queen'," he commented to Ian critically.

The sneer intensified on Mr Oliver's face. "It's funny you should open your eyes now," he continued, addressing Ian as if Dean hadn't even spoken. "When they've been closed for so very long."

Ian's face was unreadable. "You lied to me," he said simply.

"You lied to yourself," Oliver returned. "You knew where this would lead."

"You said you wouldn't hurt them!" Ian protested, taking another step forward.

The sneer turned into something else then, a smile so devoid of anything approaching mirth that Dean actually shuddered. "I'm not going to hurt them," Oliver replied coldly. "_I'm_ not going to hurt anyone."

Although there was no real way to tell where Oliver was looking, Dean would have sworn the guy's focus had shifted to Sam.

"Sam?" Oliver said then, confirming Dean's suspicions. "Are you ready to prove it to me now?"

Sam still stood there, staring absently at nothing. "I guess," he said, voice distant and detached.

"No…" Ian gritted his teeth, and Dean got the distinct impression he knew what was coming next.

"Sam…?" Dean said.

When Sam didn't move, Oliver descended the last of the stairs, moving to stand behind Sam, one hand on the boy's shoulder. He bent down slightly, whispering right into the kid's ear. "Remember what he did, Sam. Remember what he did to your brother."

Dean frowned at this, a horrible idea suddenly creeping into the back of his head and lodging there like a squatting spider. "Sammy?" he said carefully, taking another cautious step towards his brother, only an arm's length between them now. "Sammy, what're you hiding?"

Sam seemed to look at him for the first time then, smiling a dazed little smile as he pulled a small silver handgun from behind his back.

Dean's eyes widened. "Sam…"

"I've got to save you, Dean," Sam told him earnestly, still sounding all wrong, like someone had jumbled up his pieces and put him back together in the wrong order. Un-Sam. "It's going to be alright. I'm not going to let him hurt you any more. I'm going to protect you."

Sam raised his arm then, the gun pointing exactly where Dean had known it would: at the unconscious form of their father, still splayed out on the bed, completely oblivious to the imminent danger threatening both himself and his children.

"Sam, no!" Without thinking, Dean instinctively stepped between the gun and their Dad, putting himself only inches from the barrel, hands raised placatingly towards his brother. "Sam, this isn't you!" he said. "It's not right!"

Sam looked up at him, eyes sharp and focussed, but somehow still not there. "He hurt you," he said softly. "I have to stop him. I have to protect you…"

For a second, Dean couldn't work out what Sam was talking about, why he was acting this way. But then he remembered two things Ian had said earlier: Oliver and his kind lied; and Oliver had convinced Ian Dad was beating him.

A cold chill gripped Dean's chest. What if Oliver had convinced Sam of the same thing?

The gun was so steady it was frightening, Sam's aim never wavering for an instant, and Dean couldn't help looking away from his brother's face just long enough to glance down at the weapon, pointed right at his chest, as if Sam somehow believed the bullet would go straight through him without hurting him before continuing on to find their father.

Dean looked back up then, up into Sam's eyes. He wasn't looking at Dean at all now. He was looking at Dad.

And that's when Dean knew.

_No, no, no, no…_

There was hatred in Sam's eyes. A hatred so deep, so pure, that Dean didn't think he'd ever get over seeing it on his baby brother's face. It didn't belong there. Not on that face.

"Sammy – " Dean began, reaching a slow, trembling hand towards the gun. "Give me the gun, Sammy. You don't want to hurt anyone."

Sam glanced behind him then, at Mr Oliver, nodding as if the guy was speaking to him, although Dean heard no words. "Yes," Sam said. "I know I have to stop him. Stop him hurting Dean."

"Sam, he never – " Dean didn't get to finish the sentence, it taking him maybe half a second to realise that Sam had readjusted his aim around him, the gun now pointing at Dad's head as his finger slowly squeezed the trigger.

Instinct and eight years of training taking hold of him before he even really knew what he was doing, Dean knocked the barrel off-target with a flick of his hand just as Sam pulled on the trigger, the bullet whizzing past the older boy's left ear and ricocheting off the metal bed end with a ping, followed by a thud as it embedded itself in the opposite wall.

Dean took a couple of shallow breaths, visually checking Sammy over for injuries before doing the same for his Dad.

"No!" Sam burst out then, face crumpling and fire in his dark eyes. "Why would you do that?" he demanded. "Why would you _do_ that, Dean?"

"He's our _Dad_, Sam!" Dean replied, as if it were obvious, making a move towards his brother who raised the gun once more, this time pointing it directly between Dean's eyes. Dean flinched, both inside and out, for the second time looking down the barrel of a gun being pointed at him by his kid brother. "Sammy…"

Ian grabbed Dean's arm then, pulling him as far away from the gun as he could. "Dean, don't," he began, but got no further as Sam, his original target now unprotected, once more raised the gun and aimed it at his father.

"No!" Dean fairly screamed, shrugging himself free of Ian's grip and flinging himself in front of Dad, trying to cover as much of him as possible despite being only half his size.

Sam frowned, the gun twitching slightly. "Get out of the way, Dean," he said calmly, glancing briefly over his shoulder at Mr Oliver before nodding and returning his attention to his brother. "You have to understand," he said. "I have to do this. I have to protect you."

"Sammy," Dean's voice was equally as calm and measured as Sam's, but there was an edge to it that suggested desperation wasn't very far away. "Sammy, what he told you," he said slowly, awkwardly, motioning at Oliver with a nod of his head. "What he told you Dad did. It's not true. Sammy, Dad never hurt me – _never_! You know that! You know he'd never do that!"

Sam's face crumpled into a confused frown. "Then why did _he_ tell me the same thing?" he demanded, motioning briefly at Ian with a flick of the weapon clutched in his hand. "They can't _both_ be lying!"

"Yes we can," Ian put in, stepping cautiously between Dean and the gun in Sam's firm grip. "He made _me_ believe it," he said, inclining his head in Oliver's direction, much as Dean had done. "And I made _you_ believe it. And for that I'm truly sorry."

Sam looked up at him, the confusion in his eyes completely failing to drown out the hatred smouldering there – hatred for Dad, and now hatred for Ian too. "Why should I believe you?" he demanded. "Grown ups lie all the time!"

"Yes we do," Ian admitted. "But I'm not lying to you about this. Sam, your Dad never hurt your brother. Oliver's playing with your head, trying to make you believe things that aren't true." He began to move his hand very slowly towards the gun, never breaking eye contact with Sam. "He's trying to make you kill your Dad so that _he_ doesn't have to! This is his test! His initiation – to see whether you're worthy…" He made a move as if to take the gun then, Sam making no effort to stop him…

…And then all of sudden, Ian was flying through the air like a discarded beer can, body smashing into the wall opposite and crumpling into a heap on the concrete floor with a sickeningly wet thud.

"Ian!" Dean took a half-step forward, his head telling him to go check on the guy's condition while his heart told him to stay and protect his father.

Oliver turned briefly in Ian's direction, the sneer on his face almost a snarl. "Weak," he said, dismissively. "Not worthy of _your_ attention." He put his hand on Sam's shoulder then, as if he were some kind of prize too valuable to waste on the likes of Ian.

Dean bristled indignantly, gritting his teeth as Sam glanced up at Oliver before his eyes came to rest once more on Ian.

Dean couldn't tell whether he was breathing or not. He certainly wasn't moving. A small pool of blood was gathering beneath his head, and his eyes were squeezed tightly shut. "Ian?" he muttered again, before returning his attention to Sam just as his brother did the same, the two of them just looking at each other for a second.

"You – you need to move now, Dean," Sam said shakily, left hand wrapping itself tightly around his right wrist. "I have to save you…"

"I don't _need_ saving, Sammy!" Dean protested, rolling his eyes at his brother. "How many times have I got to tell you? Dad _never laid a hand on me_! You _know_ that! I know you do! Sam?" There was a note of pleading in Dean's voice now. "Sam, have I _ever_ lied to you? Huh? Ever?"

Sam seemed to consider that for a second, a frown creasing his brow as the gun lowered a good couple of inches. "No…" he admitted slowly, confusion darkening his face still further. "Dean… I don't…"

"Brothers lie too, Sam," Oliver was at Sam's ear again, whispering quietly. So quietly, Dean could barely hear him. "They lie to protect the ones they love. He's lying to protect _you_, Sam, when all you want to do is protect _him_, don't you? You want to protect him, don't you Sam?"

Sam closed his eyes briefly, unable to look at Dean as he muttered his answer. "Yes."

"Sam?" Dean tried again. He had to bring Sam back, he just had to. "Sammy, please don't listen to him," he urged. "He's not trying to help you and he's _definitely_ not interested in helping me! He's using you! Don't you see that? He wants to – to take you over, like he did Ian, only much worse because it won't be temporary. It'll just go on and on until you're all used up like the guy in the suit – old and useless to him. Then he'll ditch you, just like he's trying to ditch him – replace you with a younger, stronger model, and he'll have taken your life away, Sam. Your whole life! Don't you see that? That's why he's got Dad here – so that he can use the things in his head to get to _you_. To make you believe he wants to help you – help _me_! He doesn't want to help either of us, Sam. He wants you to kill Dad by making you believe he hurt me. He never hurt me, he loves us way to much to do that to either of us! Now, you have to put the gun down. I mean it, Sam, put it down. Then Dad and me, we can – "

"Haven't you heard it all before Sam?" Oliver interrupted, hand squeezing Sam's shoulder. Sam frowned, fingers shifting uncertainly on the gun while Dean's eyes never wavered from him, watching for any little twitch that might signal which way he was going to go.

"Sam?" Oliver continued. "It's _their_ fault you're so unhappy. Their fault. Always telling you what to do. Always giving you orders. He says it here – " he motioned to Dad's unconscious form. "It comes out here," he finished, pointing at Dean. "The two of them, always plotting together, conspiring against you, telling you what to do and keeping you from the things you want." He bent down, leaning forwards slightly so that he was even closer to Sam's ear. "Dean's clearly your father's favourite, Sam. Even when he's beating him, he's paying him more attention than he's ever paid you."

Sam frowned, his grip on the gun tightening, finger hovering over the trigger as Dean glared daggers at Oliver, who merely flashed him a mirthless smile, too far behind Sam for the younger boy to see it.

"Didn't you ever wonder, Sam?" Oliver continued, his cold grin taunting Dean mercilessly as he baited his brother. "Why him and not you? Maybe your Dad doesn't love Dean – maybe that's why he hurts him. But then again," Mr Oliver's voice lowered, face moving even closer to Sam's. "They say you only hurt the ones you love. Perhaps it's _you_ your father doesn't love. Perhaps he's not interested in you enough to waste his energy beating you. After all, it's _your_ fault he lost his wife…"

Sam's eyes opened wide. "W – what?" he burst out, and for a brief instant Dean recognised his little brother once more. "No it's not! I was a baby…!"

Mr Oliver laughed coldly. "Of course," he said. "How silly of me. Perhaps it was your brother then… Perhaps your mother died to protect _him_ from something. Perhaps your mother died to protect him from your father. After all," he added, eyes locking with Dean's as the grin broadened across his narrow white lips. "You've only got their word for it, Sam. How do you know what_ really_ happened to your Mom? On fire on the ceiling? How does that even happen? How do you _know_ that's what happened? You've only got their word for it, haven't you? Maybe they just _told_ you that's how she died… so that you'd follow orders, like a good little soldier? If it wasn't for Dean, if it wasn't for your Dad, you'd still have your Mom, Sam. You'd have your house. You'd have your family, your life, your _ordinariness_, the life you've always wanted. Your greatest wish. But for _them_ you'd have it all, Sam."

Sam's hand was shaking, tears in his eyes threatening to brim over and flood down his pale cheeks as Oliver's words snaked into his brain, making him feel light-headed and dizzy. His jaw was clenched so tightly Dean thought his face might break.

"Dean?" Sam said softly, quiet desperation infusing the single syllable with so much confused pain that had the younger boy not still been holding a gun aimed at his chest, Dean would have run straight over to him and pulled him into his arms.

Instead, he took a small step towards him, warily keeping himself between the weapon and his father, hands out to his sides as if in surrender. "Sammy," he said just as softly, meeting his little brother's fractured gaze and holding it steady. "Listen to me when I say this: I'd _never _lie to you. Ever. Especially about Mom." He took another uncertain step towards his brother, hands still raised, eyes barely blinking.

_Hurt him. Hurt him._

Sam's hand was shaking violently now, as if the boy was struggling to control his own body.

"You and me against the world Sammy, huh?" Dean continued, one step closer, still resolutely maintaining eye contact, even when he noticed Ian twitch out of the corner of his eye. "C'mon, squirt. How do you expect me to be Lois Lane without Superman, huh? That's like Starsky without Hutch; Luke without Bo; Han without Chewbacca…" He frowned slightly. "Okay, forget that last one," he amended. "But you get what I'm saying, right kiddo? What's the point in Dean without Sammy, huh?"

Dean's hand was hovering over the gun now, and Sam was just staring up at him, the tears in his eyes finally brimming over.

"I don't want you to die," Sam whispered, voice thick and heavy. "I don't want you to die, Dean!"

Dean nodded, lowering his hand towards the gun. "I know you don't, Sammy," he said carefully, feeling the cool metal beneath his fingers. "I know you don't."

And then the gun was in Dean's hand, fingers closing around the barrel tightly as he pulled it easily from his baby brother's slack grip. "And I'm not gonna. Not as long as you're here, right?"

Sam nodded. "Not as long as I'm here."

"Enough!" Oliver burst out suddenly, startling both boys. "Weakness will not be tolerated. You need to learn that, Sam. You need to learn…"

He raise his hand then, a short, sharp flick of the wrist, and Sam felt himself pulled backwards as the light between himself and his brother suddenly shimmered orange, heat coming up from the concrete as a familiar smell assaulted his nostrils.

Fire.

"Dean!"

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There was fire everywhere, or at least, everywhere around Dean, an unnatural ring encircling him completely, flames a foot above his head, licking at his arms, his legs.

Dean drew in a panicked breath, Sam's words echoing pointlessly in his head, _the man touched you and you were all burnt up,_ as he tried to make himself as small as he could, steadying his breathing, closing his eyes tight. But he could still see the orange-yellow flicker, even through closed eyelids, could still feel the heat licking at his skin, could still hear that familiar crackle…

_Take your brother outside as fast as you can…_

_----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- _

Sam looked up at Oliver then, an odd look on his face, pitched somewhere between blind terror and obstinate determination. "Please stop," he asked quietly. "Please. You don't have to do this. I'll do whatever you want me to do…"

Oliver didn't even waste a glance on him, flames reflected eerily as they danced in the lenses of his dark glasses. "Too late, Sam," he said. "You didn't prove to me that you wanted it enough…"

"I'll prove it!" Sam burst out desperately. "I'll prove it now! Whatever you want! Just don't – don't – "

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Dean!"

Dean heard Ian calling his name, loud in his head like an echo, and he wasn't completely sure whether he was hearing with his ears or… some other way.

"Dean, you can hear me, can't you?" Ian continued. "I know you can hear me, but you need to _listen_ now. Just listen to me, Dean. I know you're scared, but you've got to believe me: The flames aren't real – "

"They sure as hell _feel_ real!" Dean found himself retorting, not sure whether Ian would hear the words issuing from his mouth over the roaring crackle of the fire.

"They're only real if you believe they are!" Ian assured him. "Like your Dad's car, remember? What we see isn't always what's right in front of us!"

Dean kept his eyes squeezed shut, the heat from the flames becoming fiercer, scorching his lips and burning his throat. He tried to breathe normally, but it hurt and he found himself gasping, short shallow breaths that hurt even more. "What do I do?" he croaked, his voice thick and scratchy. "I don't know what you want me to do!"

Ian's voice was completely calm. "Dean, you have to trust me," he said.

Dean gulped. "I kinda have some issues with that," he admitted, voice becoming increasingly more gravelly.

"Dean, if you don't," Ian said. "If you don't trust me, don't do as I say, Oliver's going to kill your Dad. Then he's going to kill me. Then he's going to kill you. And then Sam will be lost forever. Do you understand?"

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"What do I do?" Sam asked hoarsely, the smoke from the fire scratching at his throat relentlessly. "I don't know what you want me to do!" He stared wildly, first at the flames encircling his brother, before shifting his gaze to the steely-grey man at his shoulder. "Please," he begged, the tears in his eyes not caused solely by the smoke. "Please don't burn him!"

"That's not the proof I want, Sam," the cold voice said, unhurried, unruffled, as if he had all the time in the world and there wasn't a twelve-year-old boy about to burn to death right in front of him.

Sam gritted his teeth, willing himself to calm down, to not look at the flames, to not feel Dean's terror throbbing in his own chest. "Then what_ do_ you want?" he demanded. "_Tell_ me!"

"You need to let your brother go, Sam," Oliver replied simply. "Let him go. Let your father go. Give yourself up to me and I'll – I'll spare them."

Sam gazed up into the inscrutable dark glasses. "You – you'll let them go?" he clarified, sceptical that it could really be that easy.

Oliver nodded, just once. "If you give yourself freely," he said.

Sam bit his lip, unconsciously mimicking one of Dean's nervous habits. He glanced back at the steadily dancing flames… unnaturally steady. Not spreading. Not dying. Just – there. Almost as if they weren't –

"Alright," Sam's attention snapped back to Oliver, his expression one of resignation; resignation to the fate laid out for him.

"You have to want it, Sam," Oliver reminded him. "You have to let me feel it – feel the thing you want most in the world. Let me see it, let me see your deepest, most personal wish, that one thing that will reveal your true self to me, all pretence stripped away. Only then, when I see you as you truly are, will we be joined as one. And only then will I be able to grant you the thing you most desire."

Sam gritted his teeth. "And if I join you willingly," he said. "I'll get my wish?"

Oliver looked down at him, one hand on his shoulder as if he were merely an over-indulgent doting uncle. "Yes," he agreed. "When we join, your desires will become mine and they will be fulfilled."

Sam nodded. "Alright," he said. "If you promise to let my Dad and my brother go. I'm ready."

Oliver's waxy visage stretched into a smile. "Good boy, Sam."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I can't," Dean whispered through clenched teeth, fingers tightening convulsively around the gun still clutched in his hand.

"Yes you can, Dean," Ian assured him. "I told you I'd help you didn't I? You _have_ to trust me."

Dean opened his eyes cautiously, the flames still dancing all around him, no bigger, no smaller. Just – there.

_Why did it have to be fire? I coulda handled _anything_ else – _

"Because he saw what scared you the most," Ian's voice echoed loudly in his head, and Dean's eyes widened as he realised he'd answered a question Dean hadn't even spoken aloud.

"You're in my head again."

"Big empty spaces, kiddo."

Dean laughed nervously at that. "Alright," he said, taking a deep breath and fixing his eyes straight ahead of him. "If you promise this'll help save Dad and Sammy… I'm ready."

"Good boy, Dean."

Deep breath, deep breath…

Protect Sammy…

_There's no fire. There's no fire…_ Dean told himself. _And you're already back in Kansas, Dorothy…_

And then he stepped into the flames.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

_Gotta save Dean, gotta save Dean…_

_I can do this_.

Sam almost closed his eyes as Mr Oliver's expensively-dentured mouth opened smoothly, just as an oily black vapour began to issue from within.

_Gotta save Dean, gotta save…_

It was coming towards him, snaking through the air as it left the vessel it had called 'home' for so long.

The grey-suited man began to sway then, his chalky-white skin turning a subtle shade of blue just as the black vapour touched Sam's lips…

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Now Dean!"

Dean opened his eyes, amazed to discover himself completely not burnt up, the flames that had surrounded him gone as if they had never been there in the first place. There weren't even any scorch marks on the concrete floor.

Sammy was standing staring at him vacantly, eyes slightly unfocussed, while the man looming behind him was starting to sway as if he was about to collapse.

_Now or never._

Dean raised the gun, aimed, and squeezed the trigger in one quick, fluid motion, just as he had been taught – bang – bang – not the slightest hesitation as two bullets sliced through the air above Sam's head, each piercing a lens of the grey man's dark glasses which splintered with a metallic tinkle, for a fraction of a second revealing two ice-white eyes before the bullets pierced them too, eyeballs exploding into ooze as the long-dead host collapsed in a heap at Sam's feet.

Dean gripped the gun tightly, adjusting his aim to point directly at his baby brother – something he had never done before and hoped to never do again.

"C'mon, Sammy," he whispered, hoping against hope that Ian was right about this.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sam opened his eyes.

A familiar-looking boy was pointing a lethally-steady handgun straight at him. Straight between his eyes.

_Little boy, what can you do to me now? Soon you'll be dead and your brother will be mine…_

"You said you'd let him go!" Sam's voice was strong. Stronger than it should have been by now. "You owe me my greatest wish – or did you lie about _that_ too?"

_Your wish is my wish. We are joined. We deny each other nothing. _My_ wish is _your_ wish. _You_ deny _me_ nothing… submit… submit…_

"_My_ wish," Sam insisted, hands balled into fists at his sides. "_My_ wish…"

_All things will be yours. All things will be ours. All things will be _mine_…_

"_My_ wish. What _I_ want…"

_Is what _I_ want… My want is your want… Now _submit_, boy…_

"Come on, Sam!" that was Dean's voice. "Come on! _Get_ the sucker! His host's destroyed. He can't go back there. Now _get_ him, squirt! You and me against every evil son of a bitch in the world, right? Come on, Sam, you can do it!"

Sam gritted his teeth, planted his feet firmly on the hard concrete, and opened his completely non-white eyes.

"What I want," he said quietly, jaw set, chin raised, "is my brother." He took a small step forward. "What I want," he continued, voice growing louder, stronger, "is my family. What I want is my life. And what I want _most – _ " he was shouting now, brows drawn together in anger. "What I want _most_ is for you to get the hell out of my head and leave me and my family the hell alone!"

_No! NO! You can't do this… You shouldn't be able to do this…_

"Right. Now."

"You tell him, Sam!" Dean added.

_You think you can better _me_…? It's not over. It's _not_ over. _

Dean almost flinched as the hideous black vapour began to gush from his little brother's mouth, curling into the air in front of him like a cloud of pure malevolence, just hanging there for a second, as if waiting. As if thinking.

"Don't get any ideas," Dean snarled. "You're not welcome in _my_ head, either!"

There was a loud popping sound then, and the black substance seemed to gather in on itself, before suddenly streaking off towards the skylight and disappearing into the obliviously sunny Kansas afternoon beyond.

Gone.

_Hopefully for good,_ Dean thought, immediately re-directing his attention to Sam, who was just standing there, shaking like a leaf, hands gone slack at his sides, shoulders slumped, knees trembling.

"Sammy?"

Dean put a steadying hand on the boy's shoulder, bending slightly to better look into his stunned eyes. "You okay, kiddo?"

Sam just looked up at him for a second, eyes struggling to focus, before muttering, "We get it?"

Dean nodded, grinning. "We got it. _You_ got it."

The last thing Dean expected then was for Sam to throw his arms around his big brother, burying his face in his t-shirt as he broke down into unrestrained sobs of suddenly-released terror.

Dean had to remind himself where he was for a second, momentarily transported back to every schoolyard where he'd squared up to a bully, every hunt that had gotten too intense, every E.R. doctor who had asked too many questions. The foster home. The monsters in the closet. The nightmares. Dad yelling…

"It's okay, Sammy," he said quietly, gently pulling his brother to him and stroking his hair. "We're safe now."

Sam looked up at him then, cheeks tearstained and pinched. "Don't go anywhere," he pleaded.

Dean grinned. "Not planning on it," he replied. Then, as an afterthought, "You either, huh?"

Sam held his gaze, completely serious. "Never," he said. "Not ever. You and me against the world."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hopefully not too anti-climactic! The Final Chapter (eek - Chapter 13!) coming soon!


	14. Chapter 13

**A/N: **So here it is, unlucky Chapter Thirteen, but let's not be superstitious about these things! One last time I'd like to thank everyone who's read this, and everyone who's continued to review it - looks like I might actually double the magic total of 100 reviews I set out with (mostly thanks to emotional blackmail of the cliffhanger kind...!) And just to prove I do actually take notice of your suggestions, I made a conscious effort to answer the phone question...

Hope you've enjoyed it! I've had a great time writing it!

* * *

_**Chapter Thirteen**_

Ian moaned as Dean carefully rolled him over, inspecting the gash in his head which had caused the blood to pool beneath him. He'd need stitches, but Dean had seen worse – hell, Dean had _had_ worse – although he didn't like the look of the guy's left leg, which was all stuck out at odd angles.

"Ian?" he whispered, gently shaking the man to try and get some kind of response. "Dude, you dead or what?"

Ian grunted something that may have been a pained laugh. "Dean – ?" he said the name feebly, eyes fluttering open just long enough to see that the boy kneeling over him was in one piece, as was the younger one standing behind him. "You guys okay?"  
Dean grinned. "Better than you, man," he assured him. "Hang on, we'll get some help – "

"Phone…" Ian managed to croak, trying to point at his trouser pocket with a weakly flailing hand.

"Dude, I know you're Gadget Man and everything," Dean said sceptically. "But no _way_ is there a phone small enough to fit in there…!"  
At Ian's mimed insistence, however, Dean reluctantly dug in the man's pocket, finally fishing out a bunch of keys.

"Idiot!" Dean muttered, slapping his forehand with an angry palm.

"What?" Sam asked, bending over to more closely inspect what his brother had clutched in his hand.

Dean looked up at Sam, shaking his head as he held out the keys. "Sammy, go to Ian's car – he had one of those car phones, right? Go call an ambulance – "

"Can't we just use a phone in the house?" Sam asked, tentatively taking hold of the proffered keys.

"Trust me," Dean said. "I searched every inch of this place for a phone when things started to get – hinky, and believe me, there ain't one…"

"That better be the _only_ reason you didn't call Pastor Jim," a gruff voice emanated from the darkness across the room. "Or are we going to have to have that whole 'Stranger Danger' talk again?"

"Dad!"

The boys both yelled the word in unison, rushing over to where their father still lay, blinking up into the murkiness surrounding him as Sam fairly threw himself against his chest, while Dean stood back a little, waiting patiently.

"Hey, kiddo," Dad said, ruffling Sam's hair before returning his youngest boy's suddenly desperate hug. He frowned when he realised Sam was crying. "Sammy?" he said, trying but failing to manoeuvre himself into a sitting position. "What's wrong?"

Sam looked up at him then, eyes brimming over and bottom lip quivering. "I'm so sorry, Daddy!" he sobbed, shaking from head to toe. "I'm so sorry! I didn't mean…"

Dad squinted up at Dean, expression demanding an answer, but his older son merely shrugged.

"I thought I heard gunshots," Dad said warily, a horrible explanation for his little boy's ragged apology steeling into his groggy brain. He peeled the little boy off his chest and set him upright, meeting the boy's gaze evenly. "Sammy," he said carefully. "Did you – ?"

"That was me," Dean interjected quickly, head shaking a warning at Sam. What Dad didn't know couldn't hurt him, after all. "Offing the bad guy," he added. "Had to shoot out his eyes – "

"There were three shots," Dad insisted, turning his probing gaze back onto Dean.

Dean nodded. "Uh, yeah," he agreed. "Kinda missed with the first one." He didn't look at his Dad as he said that, as usual finding it almost impossible to lie to the old man.

Dad just looked at him for a second before nodding. "Not like you, son," he said. "Maybe you're not practicing hard enough."

Sam looked as if he was about to jump to Dean's defence, but Dean just silenced him with another look. "I'll have to work on that," he admitted to Dad, before turning his attention back to Sam. "Keys, Sammy," he said, taking Ian's keys back off Sam and searching for one that looked like it might fit Dad's shackles. Locating a likely suspect, he quickly unfastened the chains around Dad's wrists and ankles before tossing the keys back to Sam. "Paramedics," he reminded him, Sam nodding before scurrying off up the stairs.

"I don't need an ambulance," Dad protested, once again struggling to sit up and only succeeding this time with Dean's assistance.

"They're not for you," Dean replied, nodding in Ian's direction, who had apparently slipped back into blissful unconsciousness.

Dad's eyes widened as recognition flooded his brain, Dean having to push him back down onto the bed when he made to stand. "That's the son of a bitch!" Dad cried, stretching out his hands as if to throttle Ian where he lay. "That's the son of a bitch who locked me up in here!"

"I know, Dad," Dean said calmly, struggling to restrain his father's bulk. "But he – he kinda switched teams mid-game. He's on our side now."

Dad stopped struggling at that and looked down at his son. "Why would he do that?" he demanded, brow furrowing in suspicious scepticism.

Dean shrugged. "'Cause me and Sammy are just so freakin' adorable," he replied, face completely serious for a second before a grin eventually broke his cover.

Dad grinned right back, cuffing his boy's ear playfully. "Dean Winchester, the day someone describes you as 'adorable' is the day I retire to a condo in Florida."

Dean laughed. "Yeah, I know," he agreed. "Just don't have that whole puppy dog thing Sam's got going for him do I?"

Dad's smile faltered a little at that, eventually becoming all serious as he put one hand on Dean's shoulder. "Dean," he said. "Did Sammy try to shoot me?"

Dean just looked up at him, thought about denying it, but then that telltale chewing on his lip gave him away.

"Dean?"

"He didn't mean it," Dean blurted, the wounded look on Dad's face cutting him to the quick. "That Oliver guy – the bad guy? Had his head so twisted – made him think that you – you…" he looked away, unable to meet his Dad's intensely dark gaze any longer. He took a deep breath before re-establishing eye contact. "Made Sammy think that you were – hurting me."

Dad didn't react exactly as Dean had expected. Rather than protesting his innocence, he merely nodded thoughtfully. "Hmm," he mused. "So that's what that was."

Dean frowned at him. "Huh?"

Dad scratched his head. "While I was – sleeping," he explained. "I kept having these – well, I thought they were dreams. But I guess they were memories. Of things that happened when you were little. When Sam was little. Before you were born, when your Mom and I…" he broke off, looking down at the ring on his left hand before looking back up at his son. "So he used my memories, huh? That's what he was doing?"

Dean nodded, surprised that his Dad had figured it out so easily. "They both did that," he explained. "Oliver and Ian. Used your memories. Ian made us think he was our Uncle, Mom's brother – "

"Your Mom didn't have a brother."

Dean rolled his eyes. "Yeah, we know that _now_," he said. "Might have helped if you'd told us before…"

Dad squinted at him. "You want me to tell you about all the relatives you _don't_ have?"

Dean looked like he was thinking about that one. "Well that's just dumb," he decided, as Dad fought to suppress a smile. "But he knew everything – stuff that happened to us before. Only – only – different. Made us think… Well, made us think bad stuff. About you. And he knew the code, too! The secret code. Or we'd never have let him in the house – "

Dad frowned at that. "We'd better think of a new code then," he decided. "And we're going to have a long talk about why you didn't call Pastor Jim before taking off with this guy."

Dean met his accusing glare defensively. "Dad," he said. "Two words: Mind control. Ian put the whammy on us! Not our fault!"

"Uh-huh," Dad grunted, obviously not convinced.

Dean was saved from further protestations of his innocence by Sam's clattering back down the stairs. He skidded to a stop next to Dean, hands resting on Dad's knees. "Five minutes," he announced. "That's how long the paramedics will be," he added for clarification. He glanced over his shoulder at the eye-less corpse slouched at the bottom of the stairs. "Um, how are we going to explain _him_?" he asked.

Dad sighed, raking his fingers through his hair wearily. "We're not," he said, rising painfully to his feet as he prepared to marshall his troops. "Dean," he barked, heading over towards the staircase. "Help me get him upstairs. Sam, you stay with Ian, keep an eye on him until the paramedics get here."

"Yes sir," both boys chorused, Dean following his Dad to the foot of the stairs where he had already taken a firm hold around the Mercedes guy's torso.

"Grab his feet," Dad ordered.

Dean hesitated for a second, suddenly face to face with the mess he'd made of the guy's face.

"Dean?" Dad urged impatiently, frowning at his older son.

Dean continued to just look at the guy, vaguely wondering whether he'd been an innocent little boy like Sam once. Wondering whether he had a name. Had _he_ been 'Mr Oliver'? Or had the thing inside him?

Sam looked up from his position on the floor where he knelt next to Ian, looking from the body to the expression on his brother's face. "He was already dead, right?" he said quietly, gently catching Dean's fingers in his own.

Dean looked down at him, as if suddenly remembering where he was, and nodded ever-so-slightly. "Yeah," he agreed, squeezing Sam's hand gratefully. "Already dead." He smiled weakly before grabbing the corpse by the ankles and preparing to help Dad get him upstairs.

"We'll salt and burn him when the paramedics have gone," Dad said, seemingly oblivious to the unsettling fears niggling at the back of Dean's mind as he hefted the body, pulling and tugging as he half-lifted, half-dragged him up the stairs. "Just in case," he added.

Dean nodded, glancing back down at Sammy, an ironic smile catching at the corners of his mouth. "And to think," he said. "You wanted to give all this up…"

* * *

Maybe it was the unnatural strobing of the ambulance's flashing blue lights, but Ian looked totally different now as the paramedics efficiently strapped him into the gurney and prepared him for the trip to the hospital. Younger. Somehow more vulnerable. He had a bad head laceration and a _very_ broken leg, but concussion aside, he was going to be fine after his 'tumble down the stairs'. 

Dean had gotten Sam to do his whole doe-eyed thing for the lady paramedic – "I came down into the basement and found my Uncle had fallen down the stairs! I was so scared, I didn't know _what_ to do!" – and Ian had commented that, with a routine like that, Sam would never need to delve into the mysteries of mind control in order to get the things he wanted.

"Hey," Ian said, catching hold of Dean's hand as the paramedics busied themselves attaching various tubes and wires about his person.

Dean looked down at him thoughtfully, actually not wanting to kill him for once.

Ian returned his gaze sadly, choosing his words carefully. "I guess you guys won't be here when I come back, huh?" he said, coughing to cover the sudden lump in his throat.

Dean glanced over his shoulder to where Dad was keeping a wary distance, anxiously checking out the well-being of his Impala, which he had rescued from the shed after temporarily hiding Mr Oliver's host there.

He turned back to Ian, surprised to discover a lump in his own throat. "I don't think so," he said, putting his other arm around Sam's shoulders and pulling the kid to his side.

Ian would have nodded if his head didn't feel like a cannonball. "I pretty much figured," he said, smiling awkwardly. "Listen," he continued, squeezing Dean's hand. "I really am sorry. About everything. I wish…" he trailed off, glancing down at Sam before returning his gaze to Dean.

Dean nodded, suddenly struck by how much Ian's eyes resembled his own, like he really _could_ have been his Uncle. "Me too," he said earnestly, briefly wondering what it would be like to have relatives in the 'normal' world.

The paramedic lady put her hand on his shoulder then, gently ushering him and Sam out of the way as she and her partner prepared to move the gurney into the ambulance. "Okay, honey," she said. "Time to go."

Finally releasing his hold on Dean's hand, Ian continued to smile at the boys sadly. "You guys look out for each other," he said, as the paramedics lifted him into the back of the ambulance.

Sam glanced up at Dean. "Always," he promised.

Dean had to raise his voice slightly as the paramedic lady began to close the ambulance door. "I hope you find your guy!" he said.

Ian laughed at that, while Sam frowned, not understanding. "You'll be the first to know when I do!" Ian promised, the doors closing on his words as the male paramedic slid into the drivers seat and started the engine.

Sam grimaced up at Dean. "What was _that_ about?" he demanded, following Dean's gaze as he watched the ambulance begin to roll away down the drive.

"I'll tell you when you're older," Dean promised. "Like, _way_ older."

"Boys?" Dad was calling them as he hauled his duffel bag out of the Impala's trunk. "Go get your stuff together while I take care of the nice man in the suit." He started to root through the bag, pulling out a container of salt, lighter fluid and a matchbook pilfered from some motel or other.

"Yes sir," Dean replied, turning and head for the house, arm still draped around Sam's shoulders. "You did real good fighting off that Oliver creep, Sammy," he said, steering Sam up the steps towards the kitchen door.

Sam shrugged. "He didn't want what _I_ wanted," he replied. "I don't think we'd have worked out."

Dean laughed at that. "Probably not," he agreed, opening the door and ushering Sam inside. "He certainly didn't seem the Thundercats type, anyway."

Sam chuckled as the two of them headed through the kitchen towards the stairs.

"Hey Sam?" Dean asked as they passed the games room. "You think Ian would miss his video game console?"

Sam shrugged. "You think he'd miss his pool?"

Fifteen minutes later, Sam and Dean were safely installed in the back of the Impala where they belonged, Dad sliding in behind the wheel and gunning the powerful engine.

"It's quite a way back to Gladstone," he observed, revving the old car slightly, just to feel the rumble beneath him. "You guys wanna stop for something to eat? I think I saw a mall on the way in. I might even spring for ice cream – "

"No!" his sons answered as one.

"No ice cream," Sam confirmed, folding his arms across his chest.

"And _definitely _no malls," Dean added, shuddering.

Dad shrugged, wondering whether all kids were as odd as his could be sometimes. "Alright then," he said, putting the big car into gear and beginning to manoeuvre down the driveway. "That'll give us a good couple of hours to discuss a few things. I think we'll start with strangers: the dangers thereof. Then we can move on to the many and varied uses of the telephone. And we can finish up with the inherent dangers in shooting at our parents."

Sam cringed. "Yes sir," he said meekly.

"Dad?" Dean piped up. "Two words: mind control."

"Dean?" Dad replied. "Two words: you're grounded."

Dean sighed. "Yes sir," he muttered, turning in his seat to watch wistfully as Ian's house retreated into the distance.

Home.

Someday.

He was brought back to reality by Sam's head drooping against his shoulder, and he looked down at the little boy, whose eyes were already closing. Slipping his arm carefully around him, he glanced up into the rear view mirror, where he could see the relief in Dad's tired eyes as he watched them thoughtfully.

Home was where you made it.

And for now, it was right here.

**The End  
**

* * *

That's all folks! In the words of Douglas Adams, so long and thanks for all the fish... 


End file.
